


촉촉히 촉촉히 (내리는 너)

by quagmireisadora



Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: Aftercare, Aliens, Bath Sex, Body Worship, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Kinktober, M/M, Massage, Masturbation, Mirror Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Praise Kink, Scissoring, Sex Pollen, Sexting, Sounding, Squirting, Vaginal Fingering, ass worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:26:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 31,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26777344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quagmireisadora/pseuds/quagmireisadora
Summary: SHINee pairing kinktober bingo drabbles (fem and het included)
Relationships: Choi Minho/Kim Kibum | Key, Choi Minho/Lee Taemin, Choi Minjung/Kim Jonghyun, Choi Minjung/Kim Junghee, Choi Minjung/Kim Kibum | Key, Choi Minjung/Lee Eunsook, Choi Minjung/Lee Jinki | Onew, Choi minjung/Lee Taeyeon, Kim Gwiboon/Lee Jinki | Onew, Kim Gwiboon/Lee Taemin, Kim Gwiboon/Lee Taeyeon, Kim Jonghyun/Kim Kibum | Key, Kim Jonghyun/Lee Jinki | Onew, Kim Jonghyun/Lee Taemin, Kim Junghee/Kim Kibum | Key, Kim Junghee/Lee Eunsook, Kim Junghee/Lee Taeyeon, Kim Kibum | Key/Lee Jinki | Onew, Lee Eunsook/Lee Taeyeon, Lee Jinki | Onew/Lee Taemin
Kudos: 46
Collections: Kinktober Bingo 2020





	1. [Eunsook / Junghee] 백분의 일도 하지못했으니까

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 가슴 한곳 어디가  
>  멈춰버린것만 같은데  
>  어찌할까요 어찌할까요  
>  어떤 마음으로 살아가야 할까요  
> 

“Well?” the princess demands, motioning to the pool around her. “Are you coming in or not?” 

Junghee blinks. Steam rises off the water and the large hourglass in the corner of the space drips more sand into its lower half. The head eunuch hasn’t trained her enough to tell her what her duties are in such a situation. Besides telling her how to pour the tea, how to serve a sweet, and what perfumes are the princess’ favorites, he hasn’t explained propriety and etiquette. 

She idles for several more minutes.

“Are you hard of hearing?” the princess touches her ears and inquires with some concern. 

“N-no, your majesty,” Junghee snaps out of it and begins undressing. The sound of her anklets echoes against the tiles. This place is like no bath she had ever seen when she lived outside the palace. It is like a small palace in its own right, she thinks. Rows of soap and fragrances line the shelves, bottles of a thousand shapes and colors glinting against the sunlight. A pile of raw linen drying cloth sits behind her, starched and white.

It takes her a while to get all the layers off herself, and when she’s in nothing but her chest band and inner pants, her fingers fumble while carefully folding each piece of discarded clothing. 

“One could mistake **you** for the princess, the way you’re making me wait on you.”

“My humblest apologies, your majesty,” Junghee bows in a fluster and makes quick work of the rest of her attire. As she stands completely unclothed, a shiver runs down her spine. She hugs herself, thinking the cold morning is to blame.

When she turns around, Princess Eunsook is staring at her. She blushes, walks over to the edge and quietly slips in.

The water is hotter than she’s accustomed to in the servants’ quarters. They hardly ever get to bathe in the first place, and when they do it is a quick affair: one filled with thoughts of all the chores waiting to be done and the sound of insistent yelling to _hurry up!_ Even so, Junghee doesn’t know whether to be grateful or worried. The princess isn’t known to be gentle with her handmaids. Often there are whispers flying late in the night, about how her heart must be made of stone if even the prince receives no affection from the woman. Then again, Junghee has never seen Prince Taemin in person. For all she knows he may be a vile and heatless man himself, undeserving of any kind of love.

Settling in behind the royal woman, Junghee’s fingers carefully unravel her long black braid. “The princess has beautiful hair,” she compliments, following the head eunuch’s orders on how to keep their monarchs pleased. Showering them with praises is the easiest way to win their favor.

The other gives a grunt of acknowledgement. Several minutes of silence pass them before she speaks again. “By the color of your skin… perchance, you are from the fishing villages to the south?”

Junghee stills her hands, so stark in contrast with the princess’ own milk-like complexion. “Y-yes, your majesty,” she murmurs. “I apologise if my darkness displeases--”

The princess whips her head around and scowls at her. “Do not presume to know what pleases or displeases me,” she reprimands.

“My humblest apologies.”

“And stop apologising so much!”

“I…” Junghee bites her tongue. “I understand, your majesty.”

She continues to clean the other’s hair and scalp, carefully scrubbing and massaging the place with oil until she is told to stop. 

“Now let me wash you,” Princess Eunsook says and begins turning around. 

Junghee draws away in surprise. “Y-your majesty?” she asks. “It… it is not proper!”

“I will decide that,” the princess dictates, then tilts her head a little. “Unless you do not wish for me to touch you?” her eyebrows rise in question.

She stays in her place for several moments, the water lapping against her chest. The princess is always strange, they say. She has odd impulses and makes peculiar requests. The princess doesn’t value ceremony and is constantly causing uproar with the dowager’s palace when she flouts convention. Be it her skill at reading or debating affairs of stateship, Princess Eunsook is not like any princess Junghee has ever heard tell of. She possesses a quick mind and even quicker wit, often indulging in games of baduk with distinguished scholars, often upstaging ministers with easy resolutions to difficult quandaries. 

Junghee wonders if she can find some peace in her company. “M-may I… may I swim?” she requests.

“Swim?” the princess smiles, and the way the sun settles to meet her teeth and cheeks, it doesn’t appear to be an ugly smile at all. It is soft and indulgent. “I suppose there is no harm in it,” she allows. 

With a bow of the head, Junghee wades and then floats along the sides of the pool, eventually drifting on her back. The ceiling is high, made of a dark wood. The lamps hang low, their candles unlit and their metal rusting in places. She wonders how many others have seen this sight before her, wonders how many were mere handmaids like her. She wonders if the princess is as capricious as they say and could change her mind at any moment, ushering in the guards to have Junghee taken away for a whipping--

A hand touches the back of her head, prompting her to stand again. “Careful,” the princess murmurs. “I would be loathe to see you hurt.”

Junghee turns to find herself close to a tiled wall, reaching out to touch its hard and dripping surface. “The princess is very kind,” she thanks.

“Do you truly mean it?” Princess Eunsook challenges, a smile still sitting warmly on her face. “Or is that more empty flattery?”

 _Empty flattery_ … perhaps that is the reason behind this woman’s coldness, Junghee wonders. Perhaps she does not feel truly cherished, not by the prince and not by the court. It raises sympathy in her. In a consolatory gesture, she touches the other’s wrist. 

“The princess has been good to me.”

“For permitting you to swim?” the other’s voice holds a giggle. It is childish and full of mischief. “You are easily pleased.”

“Does… does the princess have someone too?” Junghee presses her fingers against the other’s soft palm. “Someone who is good to her?”

The light shifts in the princess’ eyes, but not towards coldness. If anything, she turns even warmer than the water around them. Closing in towards Junghee, she brings another hand to caress her cheek. “My search is unending,” she whispers. “My yearning knows no bounds.”

Junghee nods, letting herself be held and examined and regarded with the other’s curiosity. “I am here,” she offers. “How may I serve?”

“Do not serve at all,” Princess Eunsook sighs. “Do not be what you must be. Be what you wish to be.”

Junghee feels another shiver, but does not separate herself from the hands that keep her in place. They are not like other hands she has felt on her. They are not oppressive like those of men cornering her in the dark, holding the rotten stench of drink or the filthy urgency of need. No, these hands are still, like a tree bowed by its heavy fruit. Like a bridge stretched just above a river, its underside barely touching the flood. These hands are not demanding. They are slow, they play with Junghee at the same speed as her breath. 

“Will you sing for me?” Princess Eunsook whispers at her throat before her lips press against the place. 

Junghee gasps, not knowing what the words mean but understanding that they are full. They hold their meanings like overflowing cups, some splashing onto her skin, some hissing against the other’s touch on her body. When they part, she searches the princess’ face for answers, for what she truly wants; searches even for any signs of trickery. All she finds is water dripping from her hair to her chin, some hanging off her soft and plump lips, some staying on her strong hooked nose. 

“Will you be,” the princess whispers as she holds Junghee by her jaw. “Good to me?”

Their mouths rest against each other, but they do not move. Even so, Junghee lets go of a long and breathy sound when she is kissed. She hears clouds gather to crush her with thunder and lightning. She feels moss growing on the branches of her arms and salt swimming through her thoughts. She senses a whip slashing across her chest. As the kiss takes her breath from her, she holds onto the other’s shoulders and forgets who she is, where she is and what she is expected to do. 

Soft fingers reach for her breasts, stroking and caressing. Junghee produces another stringy sound before biting onto her own fingers.

Princess Eunsook giggles again. “I must hear you sing.”

This strange woman, with her mystery and her enigma… this strange princess makes her feel possessed with a desire to do more than serve. To be more than a handmaid. This woman makes Junghee think they are not mistress and attendant, not with their clothes forgotten and their duties shirked. They are equal here, in this moment. Even with their skins so different and their pasts so divergent, they are equal. 

The thought erodes Junghee’s mind, makes her want to breathe until her lungs are full of sunshine.


	2. [Jinki / Kibum] Hold You For a Minute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 넌 아무렇지 않게  
>  또 나를 밀어내고 있잖아  
>  넌 몰라 몰라 몰라  
>  Don't you run from me 

Jinki feels some of the air get knocked out of him from how hard Kibum's thrusts get after a while. Raising his arms, he presses his palms against the shockingly cool cloth of the headboard, bracing himself from sliding higher. The intensity rattles him a little, makes his hair stand on end. He lets out broken sounds in a voice he only half-realises is his own, tone rising under the incessant slap of their skins.

He's in a strange position—one leg coiled around Kibum's waist, another pressed as close to his own chest as possible. In a few hours, long fingers will leave purple marks where they grip his thigh. Circles of teeth will bloom red on his skin when he's in the shower. Kibum is usually sweet and slow, but sometimes there's something a little feral about him. Sometimes he seems a little dangerous.

"More," Jinki commands. He's very skilled at egging the other on. He knows just what buttons to push and how hard to push them.

Kibum obeys. He presses in faster and deeper. The sound of their hips resonates in Jinki's addled mind like a cracking whip. He spares a hand to reach down and clutch at a slender arm, a strong shoulder. The place feels heated and wet. Sometimes Jinki likes to joke that this is the only kind of exercise Kibum will ever do by his own volition. Sometimes he likes to tease the man about it. Most times, he just enjoys the frenzied way his clothes are manoeuvred off of him before he's pulled in so tight he feels like his ribs will crack.

"A-ah..." Kibum freezes for a moment. His grip gets unrelenting on Jinki's ass for a few seconds until he stops, lets go of a long and shaky breath. Jinki pants, peering down at the other and expecting him to reach for the lube again. But when Kibum begins pulling out with a deep groan, he frowns.

"What...?" he asks, carefully rising on his elbows. They're drenched in sweat, some dripping off of Kibum and splattering on Jinki's thigh. He pushes himself higher and notices a thin string of cum connecting them. "What, already?!" There's a hint of disbelief in his voice, more in his eyes.

Kibum gives a small, imperceptible nod.

"Ahh...!" Jinki grumbles and falls onto his back, still hard, still reeling, still without relief. Nevertheless, he looks down again. "You liked it that much?" he murmurs with a little smile.

Kibum licks his chapped lips as his hands stroke over the underside of Jinki's thighs. "And you?" he asks back without really answering.

Jinki shifts a little. It doesn't feel all that different than usual, but he can tell he's a little full. Less full than when Kibum is behind him, biting into his shoulder and squeezing a ring of his fingers around Jinki's hardness: but full nonetheless. Scrunching his nose, he lets that be his answer.

Kibum sighs slow and tired. "Sorry," he murmurs, leaning in and reverentially kissing Jinki's knees, one after the other. "Let me clean you."

Jinki reaches a hand out for help sitting up, making a slightly disgusted sound when he's pulled upright and feels something wet and warm slither out of him. "You really liked it **that** much?" he demands and Kibum is chuckling sheepishly. "I didn't even know you could make so much."

With a spluttering laugh and a satoori-affected _what the hell are you saying, old man_ , Kibum leans in for a kiss, seemingly back to his gentle self again. His hands caress Jinki's sides, stroke circles on his back and neck. "Run a bath?" he suggests, affectionately nudging their noses together.

"Takes too much hot water," Jinki dismisses, but he secretly wants that luxury. The reason they rented a bigger place was so they could live in comfort, and sometimes he likes indulging himself. But he also knows he's the more responsible of the two. Were it up to Kibum, their power bill would come out astronomically high every month. No, Jinki needs to suck it up and resign himself to a quick shower.

When he's getting up to leave, he's stopped and told to wait. "Let me hold you for a minute," Kibum requests, each word uttered with so much love it seems like he's humming a song. A serenade. A hand comes up to fix his sweaty hair off his forehead. A pair of lips touch the corner of his mouth and two sets of fingers fondle his hipbones. Jinki is surrounded. He has nowhere to hide, nowhere to think his most earnest thoughts in solitude. Kibum won't allow it, he demands to know everything. He demands to hear everything.

"I... liked it too," he finally reveals, feeling a smile stretch against his cheek. "A little bit."

Sometimes he thinks Kibum can read his mind. Sometimes he thinks Kibum can see Jinki's thoughts reflected clearly on his face, scrolling across his forehead like a news feed on TV. Sometimes he thinks it's just a corollary of being together for nearly a decade and knowing each other inside-out. Secretly though, he knows Kibum is just a clingy old sap.

A hand closes around Jinki's throbbing heat. "Want me to help?" Kibum murmurs between their mouths, swallowing any forthcoming answers as the animal peeks his head out again.


	3. [Jinki / Minjung] 넌 행복해하기만 해

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 왜지 여전히 널 보면 난 아파  
>  사랑만 깊어져 미쳤어  
>  I need a doctor  
> 

Jinki doesn't really have an ideal type, but the way Minjung looks tonight, he thinks she's a goddess.  
  
She's always had a tendency to wear the kind of clothes that underplay her perfection. Her floral blouses and sensible shoes, her hair tucked away in a neat bun, her face bereft of any sign of make-up. He wonders if it's a manifestation of her shyness. He wonders if she does it to be taken seriously—and then he immediately wonders who **wouldn't** take someone as bright and brilliant as Minjung seriously? Only a fool, maybe.  
  
"Mm... oppa's only saying that because he's partial," she pouts when he tells her.

It's the first time he's been in her apartment, and the first time he's seen her with her chestnut hair cascading down her back. It feels exciting, to be sitting across the table from her and watching her hands move, slow and graceful. It feels like he's been afforded a privilege to see her like this, to hear her talk like this. The way she holds her glass of wine, the way her soft lisp closes around her words, the way her eyes are brighter in the dim lighting... he nearly forgets the food in front of him, nearly forgets that tonight is just about dinner and a movie indoors while the streets pile with snow. He nearly forgets that there's still that small bit of distance between them he cannot cross, not until Minjung pulls him closer. But it's a tantalizing stretch. It keeps him up some nights, thinking about her, wanting her, touching himself as he imagines her: moving above him in an unbearably slow rise and drop.  
  
"Of course I'm partial," he admits with a grin. "What else do you expect, when I like you so much?"  
  
Maybe the wine has gotten to him, maybe it's the way she seems to hang onto the ends of his sentences as if she expects him to go on. Maybe Jinki is imagining the small bow of lace sitting on the back of her neck: but something tells him tonight was never really about just dinner and a movie. Tonight is what Minjung wants, but doesn't say out loud. Tonight is what Jinki is yearning to give her, if only she'd whisper the words.  
  
He helps her with the dishes, helps her uncork a second bottle, helps her sustain a few more trivial conversations until there's no reason to stall anymore. Soon enough, they're wrapped around each other on the sofa. A film plays on the TV screen but doesn't hold their attention. Minjung runs her palm along the outside of his thigh. Jinki draws circles and spirals on her shoulder blades. She's draped over him, their legs tangled and their arms entwined. Her breath is so slow, so close to his skin. Her body is overpoweringly warm, as if she's stoking a fire to set him alight. Her hair is soft when he combs through its length. Minjung is so beautiful, it's difficult to hide the effect she has on him, when they're pressed together like this. It's difficult to conceal how hard she makes him, how much he wants to roll himself against her, into her, how much he wants her to touch him. It's difficult to play it cool, so he doesn't try. He doesn't lead her on, and she doesn't try to follow. They lie on each other's patience, stretching it, letting it wear thinner and thinner until it's on the verge of breaking.  
  
When her lips find his jaw, they drag slow and sleepy. His hands find the hem of her top and stroke her waist, his hair rising to her whimpers. He braves a squeeze of her hips and she presses her nose into his neck. He stares back when she inches off and studies his face, long fingers trailing from forehead to cheek before resting on his mouth.  
  
"Will oppa stay the night?" she invites.  
  
"Don't know. Will I?" he asks in return, teasing, ghosting his breath on her palm. She whines and wiggles against him, hooking her arms behind his neck in an unspoken request to carry her to bed. He does, hefting her up by the perfect curves of her rear, letting her down when they're in the darkness of her room.  
  
She sways a little on her feet. "Stay the night, oppa," she asks again, clumsily tugging at the buttons of his shirt. This time, he pushes her hair back and nods, craning up to give her a peck on her pretty pink lips.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
He doesn't touch her much more after that. He lets her fall asleep as she clutches at him, her limbs so long and her breath lined with tiny mewls that come and go throughout the night. She keeps him up like that, torturing his senses as she continues to be so unacceptably close and irresistibly sexy.

When he wakes, aching and tired, she's not in his arms anymore. He frowns, groans at the sunlight trying to barge its way in through a small gap in the curtains.

"Does oppa not like me?" her voice comes to him when he's still half asleep, sounding tiny and uncomfortable.

"Mm?" he yawns, rubs at his eyes and shifts onto his side, finding her on the farthest edge of the bed, curled in on herself. The tall and confident Minjung is gone, replaced by someone else. This person is meek, her shyness is no longer charming but self-conscious. Wondering if he's somehow teleported into someone else's bed, he blinks a few times until his vision clears, and then his worry follows.

"Does... does oppa not want to be with me?" There is a heartbreaking dejection in her tone.

"Minjunggie—" Jinki sits up a little, reaches out to touch her but thinks better of it when she tries to make herself even smaller. He shifts closer instead, lying on his front and blinking at her. "I do. I want that a lot," he simply answers, waiting for her to say something else.

"But... but then," her voice is timid. "We didn't do anything." She pouts, but it's not childish. It's not the sign of a silly tantrum. Her insecurity is real, her despondency is real, and its sharpness pierces his skin. "You didn't... I even went and bought this weird expensive thing and... you didn't see it," she touches the bow, tugging a little at its baby pink lace before tucking her hands between her side and the mattress once again.

"We were drunk," Jinki replies in a soft tone. "I wanted to wait."

She doesn't look convinced. "For what...?"

With a little sigh, he moves closer still, advancing slowly so as not to alarm her or make her pull away. When his forehead is touching hers, he smoothes a comforting hand along her arm. "I wanted us to remember," he whispers, kissing the bridge of her nose. "You showing me your weird expensive thing. Me losing my mind when I saw you," he jokes. "I wanted us to remember all of it."

"S-so..." Minjung ventures, gradually loosening up and placing a hand against his chest. "So oppa doesn't hate me?"

"Mm, you'll have to try a lot harder if that's what you want," he admits, earning a swat to his arm and chuckling at her sniffling face, covering it with kisses until she's blushing and bright again.

The bow ends up belonging to a strange swimsuit-like thing that leaves barely anything to his imagination. Her curves are subtle, her breasts small and sweet. He tries to press his lips on all of her. He tries to hold all of her in one move, tries to touch every part of her in one moment. And when he pulls the bow open, when he slowly peels the negligee off of her, sucking in each inch of her soft tan skin, he stays true to his word. He really does lose his mind.

She tries to reach for him, tries to grip him from over his jeans but he shakes his head and stops her. "You first," he grins.

Jinki doesn't really have an ideal type but she's glistening between her legs when he arrives at the place. Her folds are so swollen, he wonders if they'll burst and leak a sweet juice if he presses down on them with his fingers. It drives him wild, the sight of her like that. The fact that he's made her like this, made her want him as much as he wants her, he feels himself go a little insane. Her thighs are trembling so hard and her breath is racing so fast he has to force himself to wait, to hush and calm her. In truth, he's calming himself. She's dark and pink and so beautiful, for a moment he wants to do nothing except keep staring at her. 

He runs a thumb along the place, clit to ass, and realises it isn't enough. It isn't enough to hold back, to watch her undulate, to listen to the pretty sounds she lets out. It's not even close to enough. He needs more.

He laps at her, once, twice, thrice, latching on and giving her pussy a long kiss as she whines and pulls at his hair. Under his tongue, her pulse is thick enough for him to taste. He licks again, gathering sticky strings and sucking on her silken wetness. She shouldn't taste like anything really, but when he imagines the tang of cherries and the softness of cream, he knows it must be a sign of his madness.

"O-oppa..." she manages. He looks up at her and finds her glowing. Emboldened, he returns his attention to her dripping lips with the intention to drive her as crazy as she does him. His arms rise along her torso until his thumbs are hooked under her soft breasts, giving them a gentle squeeze even as his tongue continues to lave on her. She gives him surprised gasps. Incoherent words fall out of her. Her voice is so small, so high-pitched, so filled with little giggles every time he does something different, that he never wants to stop. He wants to eat her out for days.

When she shudders, the motion is hard enough that he has to clamp his mouth onto her. He has to hold her hips down so they don't buck him off. Finding the hard button of her clit, he flicks his tongue against it until she's squeezing her thighs around his head, until she shakily asks him to wait. And even then, he wants to keep going. He wants to keep making her quiver like that, until she's begging and screaming.

But he catches a little sob and slowly moves back up. "What's wrong?" he pulls her shivering limbs up into a tight hold, hushing her, kissing her shoulders. When her sobbing doesn't stop, he frowns and cranes back to look at her.

"Baby, are you hurt?"

She shakes her head and hides in his neck. She hangs on just as tight, cries for a long time until the sun is a bright stripe across her naked back. He doesn't know what troubles her. He doesn't understand the anxieties that plague her. He doesn't know if all his affection and attention will ever help, if he will ever be good enough to ease any of her diffidence. As he continues to comfort her, he doesn't know what's going to happen next: whether she'll keep him in her life or push him away. But when her sniffles slow to a halt, and her hand touches the back of his neck; when she whispers a little _thank you for liking me_ , he doesn't need to know. 

He doesn't need anything, except to see her happy.


	4. [Eunsook / Taeyeon] Don't Stop, Baby, Don't Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 정신 나간 짓은 멋진 걸 만들어  
>  Yes I will 항상 아름답지  
> 

Eunsook stares at the screen of her phone for a long time, still weighing whether she wants to do this.  
  
Despite Junghee's suggestive jokes about her ridiculous and possibly plastic bust size and how much "action" that must bring in her life, she's never really been in a relationship. She's never really tried, if she were honest with herself. It's not that she's too busy, or that she's afraid of what she might find. It's not anything to do with that at all.  
  
With another sip of her wine, she produces a long and steadying huff. This feels safe. Safer than meeting face-to-face, at least. The most that'll happen in this setting, is the other person will leave the conversation. She thinks that won't feel so bad. She thinks she'll be able to deal with it, if its so detached and impersonal.  
  
Gathering her resolve, she decides to forgo all her inhibitions and reaches out with the first message.

lee930718  
  
2020년 10월 2일 금요일  
hi **1**  
  


Eunsook immediately closes the app after pressing send. _This is a waste of time_ , she thinks to herself as she moves around the apartment tidying things that don't need tidying. Surely, she's not this desperate. Surely, she can find someone to pursue through more... normal methods. Like joining a meet-up group, or going out to a club, or even using a wholesome dating app. Surely even a woman like her can find someone if she just tries, right?  
  
_Yeah,_ she encourages herself, and considers deleting the message. For all she knows, this could turn into a voice phishing scam that'll land her in hot water. Or even in a dark ditch in the hills, if the recent scary news stories about serial killers is anything to believe—

Her phone makes a notification sound and loudly rattles in place with the vibration.

Panicking, she tries to distract herself with the news, with meaningless chores, with a midnight snack even. But she eventually returns to the device. She eventually finds herself reaching for it, opening the message out of nothing more than curiosity.

lee930718  
  
2020년 10월 2일 금요일  
hi  
  
2020년 10월 3일 토요일  
hello 00:02  
  


_Hello?_ Eunsook thinks. **That's** a really bland way to reply to someone, considering the situation. She thinks about deleting the chat, wonders if trying another contact might be the way to go. But who's to say it would change anything? She could keep trying new contacts all night with the same results.  
  
_Don't run from this_ , she tells herself. _You chose to give it a try. You chose to be brave. Now don't back down._

lee930718  
  
2020년 10월 2일 금요일  
hi  
  
2020년 10월 3일 토요일  
hello 00:02  
  
how are you?  
  
yea im alright  
  
you like tits or ass? 00:05  
  


Eunsook makes a scandalised face. So much for thinking this person was bland.  
  
She knows the kind of website she'd had to visit to find the contact to do this with, and maybe the woman at the other end has done this a lot. Maybe she's jaded and doesn't really get any real pleasure out of this anymore. But to someone with Eunsook’s inexperience, the brazenness is still jarring and unexpected.  
  
"This won't do," she says aloud.

lee930718  
  
2020년 10월 2일 금요일  
hi  
  
2020년 10월 3일 토요일  
hello 00:02  
  
how are you?  
  
yea im alright  
  
you like tits or ass? 00:05  
  
wait wait wait  
  
this is my first time. can i ask you a few questions first?  
  
yea sure 00:07  
  


With a mental list of a thousand different things, Eunsook picks the first and most important one out of the lot, then waits for the other to dismiss her for it.

lee930718  
  
not that i have any way of telling but. may i know if you're at least 18?  
  
you're right. you have no way of telling.  
  
so why ask? 00:09  
  
because its important to me  
  
and because i dont want to do this with someones child.  
  
you dont have to answer me, of course. but if thats what you choose, we can stop here and go our separate ways.  
  
does that seem fair? **1**  
  


The message stays unread for a long time. Eunsook thinks this is the end of her little escapade. She puts her phone away and begins to ready herself for bed. It's long past her bedtime anyway, and maybe if she has enough energy to spare tomorrow she might even go into work. Finish a few pending reports. Like that one on failing steel base plates of a Class D building her superiors have slated for demolition and rebuilding—

lee930718  
  
yeah ok  
  
im an adult. im guessing you are too. 00:36  
  
yeah. more than an adult actually lol  
  
what does that mean? 00:36  
  
im really old lol  
  
how old is really old? 00:37  
  
32  
  
that's not so bad  
  
im 27 00:37  
  


Eunsook smiles, settling back onto her pillows. She still doesn't have any way of making certain, but somehow 27 seems believable to her. She begins typing more questions, wanting to know what the other does for a living, how she spends her free time and weekends, if she has any hobbies or interests. She nearly presses send too, but is beaten to the task.

lee930718  
  
so anyway  
  
tits or ass? 00:39  
  
neither  
  
i have plenty of both lol  
  
oh  
  
didnt realise youre a woman 00:40  
  
yeah.  
  
i am.  
  
is that going to be a problem?  
  


She isn't left unread this time, but once again she can sense this may be the end of the line. It has been in the past, among her more visible shortcomings, and there're enough rejections still fresh in her memory to not want any more pulling her down with their weight.  
  
Still, she hopes against hope and stares at her screen until it starts to go dim and lock her out.  
  
The vibration seems to wake her up like a splash of cold water to the senses. Realising she'd fallen asleep for a moment, she looks around her and notices the time, rubbing the exhaustion out of her eyes and yawning wide as she checks her messages.

lee930718  
  
no  
  
women are easy  
  
i just dont do weird kinky shit  
  
so. 32. you must live by yourself  
  
do you have a bed or a futon?00:42  
  
hello?  
  
ahjumma?  
  
you fall asleep?00:56  
  
sorry  
  
yeah its been a long week  
  
but we can keep talking  
  
and dont call me ahjumma. im old but im not that old.  
  
lol  
  
what do you want me to call you then?  
  
what do you want to hear me scream when you make me cum?00:58  
  
bold of you to assume i'll let you cum  
  


Eunsook is shocked by her own shameless addition to their conversation. Her hands are shaking a little, and her chest is pulsing nervously. She sits up straighter, all thought of sleep or rest now no more than a distant memory. Gulping, she waits for the other to say something back.

lee930718  
  
hul  
  
that's no way for an ahjumma to talk01:00  
  
told you not to call me ahjumma  
  
oops  
  
oh well  
  
not like you can punish me  
  
isnt it?  
  
eonnie01:01  
  
now you cant cum for the rest of the week  
  
whyyyy  
  
i even called you eonnie  
  
should i beg?  
  
should i get on my knees?01:03  
  
no. come here. sit on my lap  
  
mm eonnieee  
  
im so wet. can you feel it on your leg? look even your skirt's getting wet  
  
please let me cum?01:04  
  
ill do anything  
  
ill be naked around the house for the whole week instead  
  
so you can touch me  
  
whenever you like01:05  
  
talk sense. i already have you do that right now.  
  
no im going to keep you like that in front of guests too from now on. let them all see how wet you are. let them have a taste too. you can spread your legs for them on the kitchen counter. let them play with your little clit.  
  
what do you think of that?  
  


Eunsook's whole body feels warm. Her blood is rushing south and her fingertips are throbbing. She hadn't expected the conversation to take such a sharp turn so soon; hadn't expected herself to type anything like that. She hadn't thought there was anything as unabashed as that in her.  
  
When she doesn't receive another response for a while, she thinks she's gone too far. She thinks she's made a big mistake and crossed some kind of unspoken line with that.  
  
She's about to type out an apology and ask if they can start over, but she's silenced once again.

lee930718  
  
what if those guests ask me to suck them off?  
  
can i still do that?01:09  
  
no. you only do that with me. you're only mine.  
  
but  
  
what if they ask to fuck me01:10  
  
only i get to fuck you  
  
but eonnie  
  
sometimes i need a dick inside me  
  
sometimes i need something big and hard  
  
filling me up  
  
breeding me01:11  
  
i need that sometimes eonnie01:12  
  
ill let you use my toys.  
  
but you can't cum. not until i allow it. that's the rule. you can't touch yourself. you can't touch anyone else.  
  
but eonnie  
  
you make me so wet  
  
what if i cant help myself01:11  
  
what if I'm so horny that I need to touch myself  
  
what if I'm at work and I put my hand up my dress  
  
and everyone on the floor can hear me  
  
everyone can see me01:13  
  
they can see me dripping  
  
they can see me with your biggest toy taking it in and out  
  
in and out  
  
over and over again until im shaking so hard calling out your name  
  
eonnie please  
  
help me  
  
what do I do01:14  
  


Eunsook covers her mouth in shock. Her face is burning, her neck is tingling. She feels full and heavy between her legs, and if she touches herself she knows her fingers will come back sticky. She feels unbelievably wet.  
  
The phone is still in her hold, its screen gone dark and its tone silent. She knows the other is waiting. She knows she's being challenged. She knows this is a battle, a tug of war between two faceless women who want more than the world allows them to have.  
  
She swipes the screen and starts typing at a furious speed.

lee930718  
  
i told you not to cum  
  
i told you only I can make you do that  
  
you know what's going to happen now  
  
tell me eonnie01:14  
  
you want to cum so bad? im going to make you do nothing but cum all day now. youll cum so many times youll think thats all you know to do. thats all you live for. im going to keep making you squirt. youll be drenched in your own juice. im going to make you think your pussy doesn't belong anywhere except on my tongue or in my hand. and youll scream. youll beg. but youll be so gone by then you wont know what youre begging for  
  
for me to stop or for me to never stop  
  


Eunsook feels a little faint. Her breath fans against the back of her hand, her head fills with the sound of it. She wants to touch herself, she wants to be touched. She wants this to keep going.  
  
But even in a situation like this she thinks she's alone in that feeling.  
  
She's about to type out a tentative _was that any good?_ but her question never makes it across.

lee930718  
  
sure this is your first time?01:17  
  


It sounds like a compliment, but the question makes Eunsook oddly sad. She falls onto her back and stares at the ceiling for a long time, her failures and rejections coming back in a sudden, powerful flood. They fill her to the brim.  
  
The other women of the office don't even invite her anymore. Its like they never wanted her along in the first place, and when she kept refusing they just... stopped.  
  
Every Friday night, they go out to drink and party by themselves, leaving her behind at her desk. Every Friday night, she stays there until the cleaner arrives and tries to make friendly conversation. She looks forward to that little bit now, because at least she can have that. Week after week, she studies his bent back and his weathered arms. Listens to him talk about the large family he left behind in Jeolla-do. She wonders if he feels as lonely as her. She wonders if people like them are meant to remain dregs, never floating up to the surface. She wonders if people like them are aliens, left behind by another civilization, destined to never feel a connection to anything in this world.  
  
She wonders like every night, and gives herself the answer.

lee930718  
  
sure this is your first time?01:17  
  
im sorry  
  
i should go  
  
what for  
  
wait what  
  
no hey listen01:21  
  
it was short. but thank you for being with me  
  
goodbye  
  
no hey wtf listen to me  
  
stop  
  
where do you live01:22  
  


Her thumb hovering on "delete", Eunsook gathers her thoughts, closing her eyes tightly and ignoring every instinct in her body that tells her this is the end. This is as far as she can go. This is all she will ever be. She drinks in a long and steadying breath, letting it clear her mind of all the self-doubt waiting to pounce and swallow her whole.  
  
It really was short. But in those short moments she felt alive. Alive. And no one can take that from her, even if this were to amount to nothing, even if she must keep looking for several more years to come. Even if she really is destined to be alone.  


lee930718  
  
i  
  
fuck  
  
please. where do you live  
  
ill come to you right now  
  
we'll just talk promise01:27  
  
ok  
  
ok ok ok  
  
331-78, Sinwol 7-dong, Yangcheon-gu  
  
please please please dont be a serial killer  
  



	5. [Jonghyun / Kibum] 잊지 못할 너의 뒷모습

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 웃으며 너를 보내고선 지금  
>  널 기다린 난 믿어

Taeyeon is sitting outside the room, and even though she’s only a suit of armour Kibum can sense the dread in her posture. 

“Tae,” he stutters as he approaches. She looks up at him, saying nothing. She used to be so lively, so talkative when they were children. But over the years she talks with growing infrequency, stewing in her metal body all by herself. He’s come to understand her silences mean more than her words. 

Gathering his courage, he touches her shoulder and heads in.

Jonghyun is startled, but only for a moment. He flashes a grin bright enough to nearly eclipse all the blood and bruises covering his body, like splattered paint on a canvas. Two nurses tend to his flesh wounds, cleaning them and wrapping bandages around his waist, the pale lengths stark against his tan skin. A state alchemist is afforded all the luxuries that can be spared on military personnel, and Jonghyun is one of the more important ones of the lot. 

Regardless, not even the best doctors in the country can do anything for his arm where it lies mangled beyond recognition.

“Bummie~” he sings as if he isn’t in agony. “Look at you, making a flashy entrance as usual.”

Had they been younger and more filled with hope, Kibum would’ve flung a spanner through the air at the other, yelling at him for deliberately damaging his precious automail. Had they been younger Kibum would've thrown himself at his friend, shaking him by the collar and asking him why he couldn't control himself better. But they are old and weary now. Taeyeon barely says a word for days and all Kibum can manage is a sigh and some hidden tears. Only Jonghyun still fights like his life depends on it.

In a way, it probably does.

He drags himself over, pulling a chair and falling into it. On a closer look, he can see the full extent of the other’s injuries. Some of the cuts are so deep, Kibum feels them on his own skin. He resists the urge to hold Jonghyun’s hand, bites down on his lip before he blurts something selfish. 

“You went overboard again,” he says in a stern voice.

“Hey,” Jonghyun begins his defense. “If Tae hadn’t gotten in the way of letting me use the Special Tactic—anyway,” he clears his throat. “You’re here. That’s good. I need help,” he shrugs his right shoulder, the arm hanging off its last remaining cables. “You’re traveling with your tools right? How soon can you get to work on—”

“Does it hurt?” Kibum murmurs, feeling like he’s already been toiling for several restless nights.

“Of course not!” Jonghyun speaks with pride. “It’ll take a lot more than a stupid fight to hurt me, you kn— _ah!_ ” he gasps when one of the nurses tightens a roll of bandaging on him. She looks like she meant to make him squeal, but he simply clears his throat again and shifts higher on his pillows. “So,” he tries to steer the conversation once more. “The repairs. Can you do them here?”

Kibum looks out of the window, trying to blink his eyes as fast as possible. “Sorry,” he mutters his lie. “You’ll need to travel back with me.”

“To Resembool?! Come on…! I’m sure you can manage without your whole workshop. You’ve always been so resourceful. I remember when you fixed my leg within a few hours of it jamming up because of the ice. You can do it again right? I know you can—”

“You either come back with me or you find another mechanic,” Kibum threatens, glaring and failing to keep his tears in. When they roll down his cheeks, it’s like his composure falls with them. He feels himself crumble in every second he has to watch Jonghyun lie helpless before him. 

“You either return with me. Or you stay in this bed, without a working arm, until someone takes pity on you and—”

“Bummie,” Jonghyun’s voice is soft, remorseful. “I broke my promise again, didn’t I?” he reaches out to wipe a thumb under Kibum’s eyes. And just like that he falls apart.

He uses a colorless, odorless lubricant. Every nut and bolt is selected to allow not only natural motion, but also modification by alchemy. Every rivet is chosen especially for its purpose in the assembly. Soldering the wires into position is a painstakingly slow process. Sewing the shoulder pleats with padding and fabric takes hours. He measures and then remeasures the rubber tendons, ensures the artifical ligaments work as they would had they been made of real tissue. Kibum is careful and deliberate with every inch of the automail, moreso than any of his other work. Every time Jonghyun writes to him about repairs, he leaves a part of himself in the joints and bends for the other to carry into all his battles.

 _So we can always be together,_ he tells himself.

A few hours after midnight, he pulls the safety goggles off his face and yawns. Testing the wrist joint and running current through the fingers, he takes down some notes for adjustments and rolls his neck to hear it click.

What should take weeks, Kibum accomplishes virtally overnight. He puts aside everything else and devotes his days to Jonghyun's arm. He could always take his own sweet time: the idea comes to him one afternoon when he's using the welding iron to join two of the large plate pieces together. He could stretch the process out by several months, keep the two siblings in his sights and under his care for as long as he wants. But there is a reason why they do the work they do. There is a reason why they fight. Kibum can't stop them, no matter what his feelings may be about the situation. He can't get in their way, he can't hold them back.

So he pushes them forward.

“You can make almost anything now, right?” the voice in the doorway makes Kibum jump. He frowns at the other for startling him, but can’t bring himself to sustain the sentiment for too long. Where he leans across the doorway, Jonghyun looks soft and sleepy, the same light glinting off his temporary arm while diffusing against the gold of his bare skin. _Was he always that built?_ Kibum wonders. _Or did that come from the fighting?_

“Everything except kidneys,” he answers. 

“Even a heart?” Jonghyun asks, then makes an impressed face when he’s given a nod. “You really are a genius, Bummie. No wonder you get summoned from all over the country. I can see it, you’ll be world-famous one day.” There’s a hint of admiration in the tone, and another of jealousy. 

“It doesn’t matter how much alchemy I learn, I’ll never be able to do what you do.”

“Careful,” Kibum jokes. “You sound like you’re getting sick of me.”

“Come on. Don’t put words in my mouth,” Jonghyun grins again, and his face goes back to being that of his brash eleven-year-old self, who constantly got in fights with other kids. Thinking back now, Kibum realises not much has changed in the other. He’s still the same kid. 

They stay silent for a while before Kibum beckons Jonghyun over. “Come see,” he motions to the half-completed arm. 

“Whoa…” the other lets out, making to touch the assembly before getting his hand slapped. He scowls.

“No touching until it’s complete.”

“OK, OK,” Jonghyun jerks his chin at it. “So how did you make it so much lighter than the last one?” 

Kibum stares at him in surprise. “You could tell that just by looking?!” 

“I’ve had your automail for years,” Jonghyun reasons. “I learnt to live with it, learnt to fight with it, learnt all my special alchemy tricks with it. I grew up dragging it with me like a ball of lead. This is why I never grew taller, you know?!”

“No, that’s just bad genes.” 

“Yah!” 

Kibum chuckles at that, leaning back in his chair and watching the other fume. Up close, his shoulders look broader than they did the last time they met. The scars from his first surgery are lighter now, like they have truly become a part of him. Even the rest of his frame looks sturdier. Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s a sign of Kibum’s sleep-deprived mind. Or maybe Jonghyun has grown. Maybe, even after losing so much, he has found himself again. He has filled himself up with compassion and gentleness again. Maybe that’s what ties the three of them together, Jonghyun and his endless love.

“You should come back more often, you know?” 

The other hums, still sulking as he studies some of the diagrams pinned to a corkboard. “... don’t want to owe you and halmeoni any more than we already do.”

“Owe us?” Kibum frowns. “You don’t owe us anything, Jjong.”

There’s a long pause before Jonghyun turns around with a smile, the width of his back as sad as it had seemed the first time they left. “I owe you my life,” he murmurs. “I’ll always owe you that. As long as I live.”

Sometimes Kibum dreams of a day when Jonghyun returns for good. Taeyeon would slip out of the car behind him, slender arm waving and hair fluttering in the wind. They’d sit around a table, bickering over the last piece of apple pie, getting whacked on the head by halmeoni’s pipe when the argument got too childish. Sometimes Kibum dreams of a future where Jonghyun decides it is time to rebuild their family home, raise it again from the ashes. The only worry in their mind would be what color paint to use on the weatherboards—Kibum would say cornflower blue, Jonghyun would insist on a deep mustard or goldenrod. Taeyeon would have the ultimate say and go with neither. Sometimes Kibum dreams of holding Jonghyun in his arms through the length of cold nights, keeping him safe until his terrors pass; until he no longer feels like he is fighting alone or carrying an unbearable weight on his shoulders. They would live simple lives, they would be a real family then. And Kibum wouldn’t have to lie to make Jonghyun stay by his side.

Sometimes Kibum dreams that Jonghyun is his, to love and cherish. But for now, in this reality, he can only watch from a distance.


	6. [Jonghyun / Minjung] If You Love Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you love her  
>  If you want her  
>  꼭 잡은 두 손을  
>  놓쳐서는 안돼

The moon hangs full and heavy above them. 

Minjung isn’t surprised by the size of the gathering. When they’d crossed the mountains and plains to arrive at this outrop of caves—their final stop for the year—she'd seen how many had come to be a part of this pack over the years. The feast some hours ago was large enough for their howls to echo across the valley. In a few days, the moon will hide half its face away, and half of the wolves will hide along with it. The long sleep will soon be upon them.

On the outer edges of the throng, tall torches stand ablaze, throwing light on each and every face. They are all human, and they are all here. They are all waiting for her with bated breath. The betas stand guard, facing outwards from the circle. The gammas chant ceremonial incantations, their words barely coherent beyond a low hum. The deltas hold hands to maintain the innermost circumference, as if protecting the weathered old shaman. She stands counting her beads and muttering a prayer through her thin wrinkled lips.

Kneeling at the very centre is Jonghyun, his eyes following Minjung closely. But while the other wolves watch her with judgement and hunger and desperation; while they crave for her to bear the fruit of their toiling, he doesn’t. He simply watches, and waits.

Minjung moves into the circle and the deltas link their arms behind her. She takes her place in front of the alpha, kneeling just as he does, staring just as he does. It is in the nature of wolves to be reverential. They pay their respects to a thousand years of tradition by doing as their ancestors have. They learn the old chants and they preserve old rituals. This is the way of her people.

All around her, the invocation rises and falls with their breaths. They want her. They yearn for her. They must have her.

When the shaman approaches, Minjung doesn’t see the old woman. She only feels her shadow as a cold red liquid is poured down her head. It drips from her forehead to chin, some falling off her nose and landing on the rough wool covering her thighs. The viscous blood tells a story: she senses the panic and frenzy of the goat in its last moments, resisting fate as it was led to the sacrificial altar. The residual memory raises a frenzy in her too. She feels it rush from her thoughts to her extremities, warming her despite the chill of the night.

The pack must sense it rippling out from her. They breathe harder and deeper, bodies swinging from side to side. They groan and whine and starve for what is to come, for the fateful union between revered alpha and sacred omega.

Minjung has lived long enough among wolves to know what the ceremony entails. The two leaders come together under the light of the moon as the pack bears witness, and they separate only when she is satisfied. No one moves from their place unless she commands it. The alpha may lead his pack into battle but in everything else, they do not follow unless the omega deems him worthy. And when they see her hair adorned with camellias, when they watch as she presents herself before him, ready and willing to take him, they rejoice in their panting. They celebrate in their desire.

But Jonghyun is still calm. He doesn't move a muscle. He doesn't reach for her, he doesn't leer at her form, he doesn't ache to bite into her largely unmarked flesh. Even as the second bowl of goat blood cascades down his countenance, he is slow and quiet. Like the dark skies. The moon does not imprison him. It holds no sway over his senses. He is free from its power.

It is her turn now to wait for him as he bides his time.

“The moon is ripe. Pluck it from the air and feed on it, my alpha,” the shaman recites. “Fill us with your seed. Give us a child. Make us whole. Claim us. We are yours.”

Minjung takes a deep breath and speaks at her turn. “The moon is loud, my alpha. Silence it with your might. Fill us with your seed. Give us a child. Make us one. Claim us. We are yours.”

Jonghyun blinks at her as she speaks, and when she is done he gathers a deep breath. “The moon is…” he nods slowly, pausing in his utterance. “The moon is watching.” He stops here, looking like he has no intention to continue. The pack grows more and more impatient. Someone begs for him, someone else howls with need. They have waited too long for this. They have waited years.

He makes them wait some more. “Is this really what you want?” he asks in a tone low enough for only Minjung to hear. The words are like an icicle driving through her chest. She wants to jump up. She wants to dash away. She wants to tear through the other wolves and leave, never to return. But he keeps her in place. He keeps her trusting.

“Is this truly what you wish for?”

She doesn’t answer, and hopes that’s answer enough.

When he recives silence he sighs and finally extends a hand to her, she frowns at him. “Come,” he motions his head towards the river. “Let us run.”

She cuts the air with her speed, letting it sing against her ears when she races along the river bank. Jonghyun is farther behind, but he tries to keep up. He follows her as if she is the alpha, and he no more than a diligent pup.

For years, Minjung had expected her celerity to mean the life of a messenger wolf. For years she had assured herself of her purpose, that she would serve the pack with her talents. But fate had turned its gaze away from her when she was pronounced to be an omega. Suddenly her purpose was lost. She would not serve the pack. She would serve no one but herself. They look to her with honor and bow to her when she passes, but the truth is she has been shorn out of the whole. She is no longer one of the others, she is simply alone.

When her legs carry her to the Tree of Life, she stops and feels some surprise at its sight. Trying to break her motion, her body rolls on the ground in a mass of leaves and snow. She pants when she is still, watching the other wolf approach.

Jonghyun slows when he notices her. He trots for a few feet before halting close to her, breath steaming and gushing from his snout as he pushes it against her mane and side. She remains motionless for a few moments as he carefully inspects her for injuries, then she moves away. 

He turns human to speak to her. “They say this place is holy,” he begins. “I have heard stories, but know not if they are true.”

“They’re true enough,” Minjung turns as well after some time, sitting on the other side of the tree and admiring its height. The roots bulge out to make a hollow, its darkness seeming to draw her in the longer she stares at it. There is a myth, that this place is marred with the tragedy of two renegade wolves—that this was once their place to secretly meet, to quietly hide, to solemnly give each other a love they were denied from harboring. The story is repeated as a lesson: to go against order means death. To go against the pack is to doom its survival.

Minjung closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. The scent of wet earth and wood invades her senses. “You have angered the pack,” she pronounces. “Leaving a ceremony unfinished… they will question your authority over this.”

“If all I am to them is a figure of authority, then…” Jonghyun sighs, ending in a soft chuckle. “Then I’ve failed a long time ago.”

She is surprised by how sympathetic he seems. For years, Minjung had thought an alpha is a relentless beast. Always bloodthirsty, always full of commands and demands. But Jonghyun breaks her notions in half. He is adamantly serene, never angered and never impulsive. Despite being chosen for mating many months ago, they have not been afforded time alone together. The alpha is always away hunting. The omega always stays behind, protecting. They have their roles and they have their responsibilities. It is only on the night of winter solstice that their paths momentarily meet.

She remains silent, waiting for him to continue.

“A pack is a family,” he says. “I wish to hold it dear to me. That should be what unites us,” he explains. “If we question one another… if we turn on one another, then we are destined to perish.”

“You talk of civilization. Look around you,” Minjung reminds him. “We belong to the wilderness. We are governed by nature, not culture. We left that behind when we received our bites—”

“Perhaps I am wrong, then,” he replies, and still his demeanor is gentle. “Perhaps, even after all these years, I am still more human than wolf. But that is my flaw,” he smiles and stalks closer on all fours, the motion neither human nor lupine. “That is how I am.”

The blood is nearly all gone from him now, only smears of it remain across his forehead and neck. She wonders what she looks like to him. She wonders if the night makes her seem as wild as she claims they are.

“What is it that you wish of me, my alpha,” she asks him.

“I wish to build something with you,” he says, coming to rest a few feet from her. “Not out of you.” His eyes are golden cradles of adoration, not straying away from her face for a single blink. Suddenly, her nakedness makes her feel shy. Suddenly her thoughts reach out to the Tree of Life, to the cozy hollow at its base.

“I wish to love you. But only if you choose for it to be so.”

 _Choose…_ Minjung had nearly forgotten such a word exists. There is little choice in the life of a wolf, there is none in the life of an omega. She has known this to be true all her years. She had resigned herself to it when they pierced her ears with silver moons and marked her for what she was. Yet here they sit on a night when the moon is waxing clear and bright, so close to becoming one but so determined to stay apart. Choose. What other choice does she have?

“If I refuse?” she says with some challenge. “If I turn you down. If I say I wish to trade my position of omega for another. What will you do then?”

“Then I will know that you are unhappy with your lot,” he assures. “And I will not hold on to you. I will let go.”

“And if… and if I agree to take your love?”

“Then,” Jonghyun smiles softly, moving backwards until he is almost at the Tree of Life, waiting to crawl into its inviting darkness. “Then I will never let you go.”

Minjung looks in the direction of the caves, in the direction they ran from. The ceremony remains incomplete. The pack’s lust remains unanswered. She has made it so that all their rituals have been for nothing. She has disrespected their needs and escaped. But the escape has led her to something far more sanctimonious than any tradition. It has brought her to question if fate truly does have her in its cruel clutches.

As she slips into the hollow, the fragrance of the bark is overpowering. Heady. Beneath her knees, the soil is soft and damp, hugging her bare skin as if it has been waiting for her. She feels a blanket of moss brush against her shoulders when she turns to look at Jonghyun.

Even in the darkness, he glows like fire.

“I am not your alpha,” he murmurs when she coils her arms around his neck. “You are not my omega.” His nose travels from the inside of her elbow to her shoulder, ending its journey in a kiss. “We are no more than ourselves here. We are only ourselves.”

She nods, leaning their foreheads together. He is hot under her fingers. His voice is sweet. His musk is strong and his body hides power beneath shifting muscles. “Only ourselves,” she whispers back when he gathers her in a tight hold. “Only you and me.”

His teeth sink into her flesh at the words, and she gasps, reeling from the sharpness, from the depth of the bite. Despite his softness, the action is not a request. It is not indecisive or uncertain. He knows what he wants and he tells her.

She clutches at the back of his mane, steadying herself for a moment before answering with a bite of her own. The mating has begun.


	7. [Junghee / Taeyeon] 니 상처까지도 나에게 줘

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 그 두 눈 속엔 슬픔도 있어  
>  그게 뭔지 다 알고 싶어  
>  너의 모든 걸 감싸 안을게  
>  입술이 닿는 이 순간  
> 

The sun is shining in a beautiful blue sky, but the wind still bites. Taeyeon lies on her back, the picnic blanket warm and thick enough to bar the chill of wet grass from seeping into her clothes. Reaching out to a side, she blindly picks up another doughnut from the box they share.

“So what’s a clit?” she asks before biting into the soft ring.

Junghee doesn’t miss a beat before spluttering and gasping as loud as she can. “Omo omo... you don’t _know_?!” When Taeyeon clicks her tongue, the other lowers her sunglasses and widens her eyes.

“Excuse me, miss. Are you sure you’re an adult?”

“No need to be such a bitch,” Taeyeon scowls up at Junghee. “It’s an honest question. Not like we’re taught this shit at school, right? And,” she snorts. “Not like eomma would ever talk to me about anything like that. Can you imagine that? Explaining female anatomy while peeling anchovies.”

Junghee lets out a bark of a laugh.

“You really don’t know?” she resumes the subject after several minutes. “Have you never...?” she waves her hand in the general direction of Taeyeon’s crotch, raising a shapely eyebrow in question. “I mean—it’s fine,” she rushes to clarify when she’s given more annoyance. “Some people don’t like to do that kind of thing but. You know,” she shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt to try.”

“I heard it does hurt,” Taeyeon mumbles. “A **lot**.” Her scowl returns, directed straight at Junghee’s face. “You sure you know what you’re talking about?”

“I mean. I won’t call myself an expert or anything,” the other jokes. “But—you’ve really _never_ touched yourself?”

Taeyeon shrugs.

“Hul...” Junghee's tone says she’s fascinated. “That’s... that’s actually kind of sexy.”

“Wat.”

“Yeah. You haven’t explored yourself,” the other explains. “It’s like... it’s like you’re a continent that hasn’t been found yet. I think that’s hot.”

“Gross,” Taeyeon makes a face. “You sound like one of those. Yucky men. Who value shit like virginity and all that garbage.”

“Oh, yeah, no, fuck those guys,” Junghee agrees. “But no, I meant. The fact that you still haven’t realised how amazing you can feel? Or that there are things about you that you don’t fully know yet? Like, how long you can go. How many times you can go. How hard it hits you. It’s like a secret, waiting to be revealed. And that’s... that’s a real turn-on, you know?”

Taeyeon twists to look up at the other where she sits on the edge of the blanket. “You fucking serious?”

“Yeah, I really like that,” Junghee replies unabashedly.

She peers at the elder for a few seconds before returning her gaze to the sky. “But what’s a clit, anyway?” she asks again.

“Hmm... it’s hard to explain when you don’t know what that part of your body feels like but. A clit is like. Like a magic button that can drive you crazy,” Junghee tries to illustrate. “It’s like a crown jewel. It sits on the head of your pussy, right? So you need to give it lots of attention. But sometimes it’s hidden, see? You need to be nice to it and bring it out of hiding.”

Taeyeon narrows her eyes at her friend. “You’re doing a really bad job explaining this.”

Junghee huffs, then shifts until she’s lying beside Taeyeon, their shoulders and arms touching. “OK,” she motions like a storyteller setting the scene. “So remember when I was dating that really hot biker guy?”

“What? That... Kibum-something?”

“Yeah, him. He used to be really good at eating me out, you know? He’d do this... amazing thing with his tongue. He’d flick it at my clit. Just... constantly, you know? He’d keep doing it until I felt like I was going to burst. And _then_ ,” Junghee hushes, grabbing hold of Taeyeon’s elbow. “Then he’d keep going! Even after I’d cum, he’d just keep going! How wild is that?!”

Taeyeon makes a gesture to say _I obviously have no fucking idea what you’re talking about._

“And then there was this girl I used to know when I was living in that gross apartment block. The one with no acoustic panelling,” Junghee goes on regardless. “Long legs, long hair. Really, really smart and so cute. Oh man, she had the prettiest clit I’ve ever seen. So small and pink. Perfect. I was like: I had no idea a pussy could look so amazing.” She sounds a little dreamy, a little excited as she relates her memories. “And then there was this one dude I met at a photography club. Big dick and big lips. Really sexy voice. He’d always touch me while we were fucking. I was quite impressed, to be honest, he really knew what he was doing...”

Taeyeon starts to tune out of the monologue, feeling like she’s never going to get her answer at this rate. A small puff of clouds appears in her vision, drifting slowly across the vast sea of blue. Despite the long sleeves of her shirt, a short gust of wind raises goosebumps along her arms. This is the kind of weather that makes her want to fall asleep. This is the kind of day that makes her see happy dreams and return to happy memories. Sometimes, she goes home to her family during the cold months. Her mother dries ghost peppers out in the courtyard, filling the air with their spicy scent. She lies outside on the deck, reading an old manhwa and hearing her brother step out to take the dogs for a walk. Her father reads a paper or speaks loudly on the phone with a friend, lazily calling out to her when he can’t figure out the controls on the new TV. This kind of weather makes her feel like a child again, free of the burdens of being a woman in a world where women are categorized and segregated. Where women are pitted against one another. Where women are not valued unless they’re a certain way, but then dismissed when they are. She misses a time when she didn’t worry about the labels that people describe her with. _Weirdo, loner, awkward._ She misses a time when she was just Taeyeon, unafraid of her own body and willing to accept herself as she truly is.

“... yah, you still listening or what?” Junghee clicks her fingers.

Taeyeon hums drowsily, considering turning her back on the other. She doesn’t want to know anymore. She doesn’t want to understand the distance she has to travel to be as confident and positive as Junghee. She thinks it’s too long a walk, too wide a gap. She thinks she can’t ever be as happy—

“Taeyeonnie,” Junghee murmurs, softer this time. 

“Hmm?” 

“It’s OK,” she’s assured. A hand slowly finds her own, linking their fingers together. “It’s OK to not know. Everyone isn’t the same. Everyone doesn’t live or feel the same way. It’s OK.”

Taeyeon worries her lip, considering asking the real question. “What if. What if I’m broken—”

“Mm,” Junghee shakes her head and tightens her grip. “When you feel like that again, tell yourself this: you’re not alone. We all feel broken sometimes. Doesn’t matter why, we all do.” She leans in closer and presses her lips against Taeyeon’s temple. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re loved,” she whispers. 

“Even if. Even if I never feel anything?” 

“Yeah,” Junghee nods, fondly caressing Taeyeon’s head. “Even then.” 

Slowly letting go of a sigh, Taeyeon closes her eyes and leans into the hands keeping her safe.


	8. [Minho / Kibum] My Eyes On You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 남들과는 다른  
>  좀 특별한 뭔가를  
>  분명 넌 갖고 있을 줄 알았어  
> 

“Breathe,” Kibum murmurs softly, massaging the other’s waist. “I've got you.”

The faucet above their heads pours water into the tub until it doesn’t. Salt and bubbles crinkle around them, kissing their thighs and splashing at their hips. The fragrance of pomegranates hangs in the air, cut open as an offering to unseen gods. Red beads of the fruit float in the bath—some coloring a mouth, some staining fingertips.

“Breathe.”

A slow hush of air is accompanied by shoulders relaxing, letting go of the tension in them. The other takes several more minutes to steady himself, eyes closed and lips parted. He looks intoxicated on oxygen alone, tongue slipping out to slowly drag along his small pink mouth. When he gulps, the bob of his throat is hypnotic. When he bites a lip, the sliver of teeth is titillating. Kibum draws them closer still, trailing his mouth along the smooth line of a jaw.

In the glow of the sun, Minho looks divine. Drugs alone can't be to blame: Kibum took a hit too. They exchanged a pill each, tongue to tongue, and now it swims in both their systems. Yet somehow Minho alone is made more beautiful by its effects. 

“OK,” he nods after a long moment.

Kibum grins, quickly spinning him around so they are back-to-chest. Minho gasps when he finds their reflection thrown back at him, reaching out to hold the sides of the tub. His body is sculptural, his skin the color of sweet toffee. He is an adonis, worthy of receiving the love of a god. Behind him, Kibum is nothing but a pale specter.

“Tell me what you want,” Kibum whispers, one hand squeezing the perfect curve of a perfect ass, the other rising higher to swipe his thumb back and forth over a peaking nipple. “Hand or mouth?”

Minho continues to stare at himself, still shocked by the sight. Still admiring the way he fits so flawlessly in Kibum's encirclement. Maybe he finally understands why he is so wanted. Maybe he's falling in love with himself too.

He takes a while before he shakily exhales a word that sounds like _hand_ and Kibum nips at a sturdy shoulder. He kneads creamy thighs for several minutes before advancing on the other's hardness. It throbs as if in reflex to his touch.

“Oh~” Kibum teases, stroking and playing with the other. “Is this all for me?”

Minho’s knuckles visibly whiten where they rest against the lip of the tub.

“Mm, what do you see?” Kibum continues in an infantilizing tone. The other whimpers and begins rutting his hips into the ring of fingers clasping around him. His muscles dance under his skin. His movements are graceful. Kibum watches him and realises he wants to bury himself so deep in the man that he forgets the way to pull out.

“Do you see your pretty little cock? I bet it looks adorable.”

“Don’t—don’t be mean—”

“I bet you always get wet when you look at me,” Kibum closes his mouth on a racing pulse. A few minutes in, his fingers let go all of a sudden. Minho whines and slides against him as if starved of touch. The skating of their skin is enough to drive Kibum mad. He chuckles, returning his palm to drag circles on a heavy head, amazed by the slickness he finds.

“P-please. Don’t play—” Minho tries again, already sounding so sinful, already wanting more than he’s offered.

“I bet you scream when you cum,” Kibum resumes his goading. His grip reverts into a ring, pulsing in tightness this time. Minho leaks from his cock and leaks from his mouth. His arm loops to Kibum’s neck, his head leans onto Kibum’s shoulder. His eyes are closed, his chest is heaving, his hold is trembling, his hips are shivering. Light reflects off the mirror, finding him and touching every inch of him. With all his soft curves and sculpted muscles, he is desire itself.

“I bet you taste like milk,” Kibum playfully pulls on the other’s ear with his teeth. “Sweet,” he hisses. His hand continues its game, moving fast then moving slow, never intending to give relief.

“ _K-Kibum_...!” Minho goes as far as lifting a leg out of the water, using it to push against the rim of the tub, pressing their bodies together as hard as he can.

Kibum grinds his hips forward in reply. “Hmm?” he says in a casual tone that does nothing to hide his own arousal as it slips between the warm crease of Minho’s ass. “What?”

There is no answer. Minho cranes back for a kiss and Kibum catches his gasping lips with no intention of letting go. Not now, not ever. He’s tugging at the other’s dick like it’s a piece of string, waiting for when the knot finally pulls free and Minho is writhing in his arms.

“Do you want to watch?” Kibum mumbles on the other’s tongue. “Mm? Do you want to watch me fuck you?”

The moans that answer him aren’t answers at all, and yet they say more than Minho could in full words and sentences. He struggles, confused hips wanting to hitch forward into Kibum’s unforgiving hand but also roll back into Kibum’s unyielding manhood. 

“Tell me what you want,” he is commanded.

“You,” Minho releases in a quiet murmur. “All of you.” 


	9. [Gwiboon / Taemin] 나를 사랑해줘 나를

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 많이 힘들었었지  
>  많이 외로웠었지  
>  겨울의 꿈에서 부는 하얀 눈꽃보다  
>  하얀 네가 울었어  
> 

"You want me to put it **where**?!" the woman named Gwiboon balks, her eyes looking like they'll pop out of her skull.

"In my dick," Taemin tells her like it's obvious.

Even though he's repeating himself, he's met with more incredulity. She looks from the q-tip in her hold, back to him. She still can't seem to make the connection in her head. Shaking it, she shifts closer on the bed and raises her other hand between them. "And... and this is something you **like**?" she clarifies.

"Yeah," Taemin shrugs nonchalantly. "Do it all the time."

Gwiboon seems like she doesn't know whether to laugh or express more disbelief. Maybe some small part of her still thinks he's joking. Maybe that same part is protesting as it's invaded by the realisation that he's not. Taemin is serious. He doesn't play games when it comes to sex, he wants what he says he wants.

"But... but what if I accidently hurt you?" she tries protesting one last time. "You could. I don't know, break your system or something," she gestures at his crotch. When he continues to wait for her, unrelenting, she lets go of a long breath. "Listen. I—I don't know about this, OK? Maybe you should think about something else. I mean. I can suck you off?"

"No thanks."

She blinks, then slowly nods. "OK. Then. What about. What about I suck you off. But between my boobs, eh? You like these?" she holds the heels of her palms to the sides of her perfectly round curves, as if presenting a product on sale. The pink lace of her bra is cheap, the skin below her neck looks tired. She's probably had a long day at her workplace and wants to go home so she can eat a big meal. Her profile said she likes food and wants to be a professional chef someday, but she doesn't seem to have the fashion sense of someone who works in the arts. In fact, she looks like she suffers her days through a boring desk job. Maybe that's why she listed herself on the app in the first place. Maybe she thinks this is a good way to beat stress. He doesn't know and he doesn't want to pry.

"They're very nice," Taemin approves. "But maybe later. Let's do what I want first."

Exasperated, Gwiboon gives in and moves to straddle his thighs. "You sure you don't want me to... tickle your balls or something instead?" she still tries.

"Mm, no, I think that's alright, thanks," Taemin politely declines. Adjusting himself against his pillows, he hands her a bottle of lube. "You'll need this," he instructs. "Don't worry about using it up, I have refills."

"Ah, yes," she nods, her tone ridiculously formal for the state of undress they're in. Tentatively, she touches him between his legs. Maybe she'd expected him to be flaccid, but her eyes widen in surprise at the hardness her fingers are met with. She's gentle, careful as she massages over the place. Taemin likes it when they're gentle. It makes him want it even more.

"You..." she murmurs, meeting his eyes. "If it hurts you have to tell me, OK?" she lays down her rule. He doesn't usually like making agreements like that. He likes to let them do as they please. He likes giving up all control. But she's clearly nervous about this, so he nods.

"Yeah."

She bends in and kisses his navel, tongue lapping at the dip and lips kissing their way to his waistband. He lets go of a humming breath. Seeing her relax into it makes him feel at ease too. The paint on her nails is chipping, he notices when she starts rolling his shorts down. She must use her hands for work, he thinks. When she caresses his thighs, her fingers look elegant, and her palms feel soft. 

She gives him a look like she's confirming this is really what he wants, and then she moves in to kiss the tip of his straining dick. Her lips are not plump, but they're pretty to look at. He wonders if they'll kiss before she leaves. As she takes him in deeper, he sighs and closes his eyes, leaning his head back and letting her play with him.

Lube squelches between her hand and his hardness when she begins to stroke him. She's slow, and once in a while she takes breaks to kiss his leaking head. Sometimes her mouth comes away with sticky strings that she swallows, sometimes she darts her tongue out to lick them off of his straining veins. She's done this a lot, obviously. She's been with several men. Something in him feels a little betrayed by that thought—that others have been with her, seen and felt her like this. Something in Taemin wants their encounter to be her final one, so that she can stop doing this altogether. Go back to a life where she doesn't feel the compulsion to service strangers like him.

Sitting up, she pushes her hair back. He notices its dark coppery color for the first time; notices how its not styled, the baby hairs at the top of her head curl up from humidity. "Should I...?" she motions with the q-tip, drawing its free end in a little circle.

He licks his lips and nods. "Yeah."

It still takes her a few minutes to figure out what she needs to do. When she begins, still so cautious, he watches her movements intently. They are steady when she grips him, when she pierces his arousal with the length of blue plastic and white cotton. She looks like she's doing fine needlework, slowly stitching through him, slowly mending him. Her forehead is creased with concentration, her eyes are focused on her task. This is not a kinky request for her, this is a problem she needs to solve. That's how Taemin feels when he's with someone too—that their company is a difficulty he's experiencing. That he has to look for an answer to remove them from his proximity. There is no pleasure in the exchanges he has, only a transaction of words and actions.

They do this to feel something more than their lonliness.

"Do you... is there other stuff you use?" she asks in a voice that tells him she's mildly curious about all this: not as something sexy but something that seems like a weird little quirk. He knows in that question that she doesn't find him attractive, but maybe she might want to hang out once in a while. A walk at sunrise, a chat in a playground, maybe even ice cream under shedding gingkos.

"Like... Pencils? Straws?"

"C-chopsticks..." he pants as she works on him, twirling and dipping the q-tip into him. "Only rarely."

She nods like they're having a casual chat, momentarily craning in again to kiss his drooling cock. She laves over the place instead of using more lube. He guesses she doesn't like how the stuff tastes. It makes him wonder what kind of food she likes; if she wants to be a chef because of something special and inspiring from her past.

Again, he doesn't think there will ever be a reason or opportunity to ask. Not tonight, at least.

It ends no differently to any other time, and Gwiboon helps clean him up after. She's pitying in the way she wipes him with a warm damp towel, giving his stomach one last kiss goodbye.

"That was... thank you," he nods, watching her wipe the lube off her hands.

She still looks unfazed, so in contrast with the shock she'd shown only minutes ago. But there is also a hint of exhaustion in her features. She's ready to leave, ready to never see him again.

Still, etiquette must be maintained, even in situations like this one. "What do you like?" he offers, reaching to touch her knee, sliding his fingers up her thigh and slipping his thumb under the lace edge of her panties. The fabric is as cheap and scratchy to the touch as he'd expected.

"Is there something you like to do?"

She stares into the distance for a moment before letting out a strange laugh. It's almost a scoff. "I..." she tries, then gives up. 

"Mm?"

When her eyes find his, when he notices the flecks of green sadness in the gaze, when she blinks away from him: he knows. She doesn't have to spell it out, he feels the words in the hollow of his own chest. She's a comrade in this cold world. She fights the same battles. He wants to kiss her in earnest, then. He wants to hold her and comfort her, return her pity to her. He wants to give her something to keep warm for a few nights to come, until she moves on from him.

"Let me make you feel good," he nudges his nose against her cheek.

"I don't want to want to feel good," her eyes whisper to the darkness of his home. "I want to feel loved."


	10. [Taeyeon / Minjung] Drip Drop On Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 천천히 밀려와 날 삼켜 줘   
>  요동치는 마음을 잠재워 줘  
>  네 손길만이 이 파도를  
>  평화롭게 해 yeah  
> 

Taeyeon’s hands are small, but they feel like brands on Minjung. They leave a hot trail in their wake as they traverse a calf a knee a thigh. She suspects there will be red blotches on her when they part. **If** they part.

"Eonnie," the girl whispers against the side of Minjung's head. "Eonnie. Is it OK... to like you a lot?"

A long night of drinking and dancing usually leads them to Taeyeon's rooftop room; to the cold and hard floor where they curl up around each other for warmth and go to sleep. Minjung wakes up and cooks a large breakfast for them to share. She likes to care for the other, likes to look after her and keep her safe. She likes being Taeyeon's friend, being more than just a sunbae from work. Saying goodbye after happy nights like that is difficult.

Maybe Taeyeon has sensed some of that in her.

One minute they're laughing and impersonating their old fart of a boss. The next, Minjung is being rolled and tickled and pinned under the other's giggling weight. And then a third minute arrives, when the laughter becomes quiet and time flows like a slow syrup. When all they hear is the wind chime tinkling on the washing line across the terrace.

Little hands travel away from Minjung's waist, to her armpit, to the back of her knee. They press in, questioning her, asking her if she wants to be held longer. Harder. Deeper.

"Is it OK?"

She wants to say yes, but she doesn't know how it will sound. She doesn't know if this is something that has spontaneously sprouted inside Taeyeon or if it's been stewing in her for a while. Building up momentum until she can't hold it back, until she has to give it to Minjung in a sigh as hot as her hands.

So she gives a small nod instead but the pace of time remains unchanged. Taeyeon's breath is still heavy in her ear, her palms are still caressing on their path. They do not hasten to attack all of Minjung through this crack in her walls. They appraise her warmth and survey her skin with guardedness, like Minjung can fall to pieces at the slightest mistake. As large and clumsy as she usually feels around the younger, Taeyeon's momentary gentleness has reduced her to a porcelain doll.

When short fingers slip under the hem of her panties, she closes her eyes. A barrier has been breached, a fence has been broken, a limit has been crossed and Minjung watches patiently as the invasion ensues.

Taeyeon gives a little gasp when she touches her. She moans when she finds slick wet folds expecting her arrival, and Minjung doesn't know what it means or if she should answer in kind. She looks to her side, trying to join their gazes, but the other is adamantly hidden in her hair, burrowed in her neck.

"Is it OK," she hushes again. "Is it OK to want you a lot...?"

She touches Taeyeon's back. "A lot?" she asks, and her voice comes out strange even to herself. It is deeper and quieter than she has heard it go. She thinks she sounds tinny when she is with men, maybe even a little fake. But she doesn't need to please anyone here, she doesn't need to impress Taeyeon with her intellect or project confidence so she can be taken seriously. She only needs to protect the other.

"A lot," Taeyeon nods.

"Show me how much," Minjung allows, caressing the back of soft black hair, cut short and usually messy; hardly ever styled into anything. Taeyeon doesn't like to be soft and sweet and presentable like other women at their workplace. She is like a machine, showing up before anyone and leaving long after. Even if she's an intern, she is efficient at her job, she learns fast and she processes even faster. Minjung would be surprised if she isn't offered a more meaningful contract at the end of her stint, but the fact is that Taeyeon doesn't like to act pleasant. She is cold and frank and has no time to waste on men who get in the way of her ambitions. Some managers don't like that in a woman, some team leaders prefer meekness and unquestioning loyalty. Some people are toxic like that. They wouldn't let Taeyeon breathe freely.

But when they're out in the streets, when they're sitting at a café or window shopping on a weekend, Taeyeon isn't Taeyeon anymore. Minjung notices the teetering imperfections and stumbling insecurities. She senses the tentative compassion in the other, not easily offered to just anyone. She finds the other's silences are really contemplation that drags her away to different lands and seas, giving her a distance that is hard for others to cross.

Even now as her fingers pull at Minjung's breath, Taeyeon feels so far away. Her wrist is not insistent. Her grip is not tight. Her hips push them against each other but her lips stay where they are, stuttering air in time with Minjung's own.

"S-should I—?"

Taeyeon shakes her head almost vehemently but she lets out a whine as if she means to say _yes. Yes, please, touch me._ Minjung is patient. She links her ankles over the other’s body, her own hands drawing circles on Taeyeon's spine and rear and shoulders. She comforts the other, for wanting so much that she doesn't even know what she wants in the first place.

A swiping thumb sends a jolt through Minjung. "T-Taeyeonnie..." she tries to keep time on its slow trickle but the thumb knows her secret now. It speeds the second hand forward. It tries to pry Minjung open, tries to wrench an earthquake out of her, tries to ready itself to run away with everything she holds sacred to herself.

Because Minjung hides like Taeyeon too. She draws the curtains across herself and keeps people from knowing all of her. They peer and they guess from the outside. They tiptoe so they can sneak up on her vulnerabilities. But she stands guard and pushes them all away. She keeps herself locked, isolated.

Taeyeon is the only one who has come so close to the chink in her armor, and now she's trying hard to breach it.

Minjung's thighs squeeze around the other's waist. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip. "Taeyeonnie..." she warns.

"Eonnie..." Taeyeon begs even as Minjung's body is shuddering. Their mouths are close enough to share breath, their tongues could easily tangle. She gulps, already imagining the taste of their kiss. She whimpers and bites into a bony shoulder.

"Eonnie...?"  
  
The answer is a gush against a frantic touch, leaking out of Minjung like a long-imprisioned confession. Her lips are pursed to lock in her sobs but she's already said everything that needs to be said. She's already admitted it all.  
  
When Taeyeon finally lifts off of her, cheeks so red and hair clumped with sweat; when she stares in disbelief and her hand returns from its voyage through Minjung's depths, she licks her sticky fingertips with a shy dart of her tongue.  
  
"A lot," she insists before joining their lips, and Minjung finally holds the door wide open.


	11. [Jinki / Jonghyun] Beautiful Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 도대체 널 도대체 널 어떻게 잡아야 할까  
>  가지마 가지마 이 말이 먹혀 들까  
> 

The wind is howling. The rain lands on their roof like a gatling gun run amok. Jinki groans and turns to his side, trying once again to fall asleep before a stray guitar note coaxes him to give up. He leaves his bed behind and walks towards the light of a dim lamp in the living room.

“Hey...”

“Oh!” Jonghyun twists to look at him. “Sorry hyung. Didn’t mean to wake you—”

“Wasn’t you,” Jinki yawns, slowly padding over and leaning his elbows on the back of the sofa, pressing his lips to the top of the other's head. “Can’t sleep either?” he asks and receives a whine in response.

“It sounds like hail,” Jonghyun complains, looking up at him with a pout on his lips.

“Could be,” Jinki agrees and bends to give him another kiss, softer, longer. “It’s that time of the year already...” he murmurs between their mouths, caressing a craning neck.

“Hmm,” Jonghyun nudges their noses together before they part. He thumbs a few more notes before fixing his pick between two strings and putting the guitar aside. “Tea?” he smiles with some excitement. “We can try that one with roses...?”

Jinki gives him a lazy smile and nod. “Sure.” He moves towards the kitchen island and fills the kettle with water. “Working on something new?” he calls out, fishing a pair of cups out of the cabinet.

“Hmm... no. Waiting to,” Jonghyun answers, massaging his own neck. He looks like he hasn’t slept in several days which, knowing the man, may well be true. “The inspiration well is a little dry these days.

As the kettle boils, Jinki rests on the counter and watches the other. He looks so small and sleepy. Sometimes Jinki likes to make himself just as small so he can fit in the curve of the other’s neck. Sometimes he likes to be as big as possible so he can cage Jonghyun in an unrelenting embrace. Tonight, he isn’t sure yet which he’d rather be. Tonight he just wants to watch for a while before he decides on his final form. 

“What fills it up again?” he asks. “Is there something to help?”

Jonghyun shrugs, reclining against the backrest. His fingers muss his hair, his eyes have a drowsy little droop in their corners. Jinki likes when he looks like that—like they’ve just separated after a long night bound tightly together. He can imagine the stickiness on his fingers, breath rushing out of bitten lips, golden sweat on golden muscles and tiny convulsions gripping them both. He can imagine Jonghyun under him, like that, and it makes him smile.

“Usually depends on my mood at the time.”

“And how’s your mood right now?” 

“Mm, sleepy?” Jonghyun giggles. “Tired, but also... restless. Like I really want to do something but I just. Don’t have any energy for it. Impatient—”

“To try the tea?” Jinki asks, then chuckles when a cushion is aimed at him. He saunters back to the other and slumps down next to him. Jonghyun doesn’t waste any time to lay across his lap, snuggling into his stomach. 

“Mm, hold me like this until I wake up,” his muffled voice instructs.

“Yah, I need to sleep too, you know?” 

“No...” 

“No?”

“No!” Jonghyun childishly insists.

“Aigoo, this person...!” Jinki playfully grips the other’s head and gives it a gentle shake before soothing over the scalp. Drawing circles on the man’s back, he thinks of the times Jonghyun sounds wild and angry before he calms into shaking tears. Sometimes Jinki waits for hours until there’s a tug at his sleeve. Sometimes Jinki moves in slowly and gathers Jonghyun in a hug that he doesn’t release out of fear that the other will disappear. Tonight, he’s calm and soft. Tonight he’s not trying to run from anything. It’s a relief.

With a sigh, Jinki settles back and closes his eyes while his fingers idle on the shell of a pierced ear. He can hear the kettle gurgling and spitting steam where it sits. He’ll get up in a few minutes to serve them.

He wakes up with a jolt when he hears a rattling sound nearby. The lamp is still on, the weather is still wild. Darkness persists outside their windows. The comfortable weight of another body is gone from his legs, and he finds he’s alone on the sofa. 

“Jjong ah,” he calls out, a little worried, a little panicked. Sleep is still hanging off of him. It replaces rationality for a while. “Jonghyun,” he tries again, louder this time. There is no answer. He feels around the cushions for his phone, for something he can use to reach the other.

Another rattle pushes him to his feet. He moves swiftly through the house, checking the rooms he passes until he’s at the laundry.

“Jjong ah,” he sighs with relief.

The other is struggling to close a vent high in the wall. “Ah, damn it...” he curses before trying again. When his hand clasps the lever and lifts it away from the lock, the panel slides inwards and clicks shut, suddenly cutting the wind off mid-howl. "Finally..." Jonghyun brushes his hands on his shorts and descends the step ladder, folding it away. “Rain was getting in so I—”

His explanation remains incomplete when Jinki pulls him close and holds him tight. He doesn’t justify his fear, because he doesn’t fully understand it himself. But the dread that Jonghyun could quietly leave him behind without a word, the horror of realising he has been abandoned for good... it thrives inside Jinki. He doesn't remember when the feeling made a home in his gut. He can't say with any certainty if its still as powerful as when it was born. But it exists, and sometimes it races out along his limbs, gripping him as hard as he presses Jonghyun to himself.

“Hyung...” the man murmurs, fingers hesitating on Jinki’s arms before they clench around his biceps. “Hyung, what’s wrong?”

Sometimes when they’re on the verge of an argument, Jinki cracks a joke and soothes the tense air between them. Sometimes as silences stretch too long and steady in the house, Jinki hums until Jonghyun joins in with a grin and interesting trivia about the song. Sometimes, if they’re far too drunk, and one of them says things they don’t really mean, Jinki wakes up the next day and acts like it never happened, encouraging the other to do the same. But tonight, he feels vulnerable and a little protective even though Jonghyun is so close at hand. Tonight, he’s not sure what to do or say, he’s not as in control as he likes to be. The walls of their home don't seem strong enough to help him keep up his protection.

 _I like how you smell of soap and sweat,_ he wants to brush the anxiety away in a whisper. His embrace grows tighter still.

“Eh?” Jonghyun gives a little chuckle at the rise in pressure around his waist, raking his hands through Jinki’s hair. “What’s this, all of a sudden?”

 _I like how you feel,_ Jinki continues to huff against the other’s shoulder. _When I’m holding you like this. I like how you feel real._

Another chuckle is given, but it seems less certain of itself. “Hyung, what’s going on? You’re being weird.”

 _I like the way you look when you ask me for something, and your face gets so sweet,_ Jinki’s mouth travels to Jonghyun’s ear, hushing his unspoken praises against the place. _I like when I can give you what you ask me for._

“Hyung,” Jonghyun finally grows a little unsure, holding the back of Jinki’s head with worry. “What’s wrong.”

_I like that I can kiss you, and you kiss me back. I like that I can be with you, and you keep holding onto me. I like that I can love you, and you love me back._

“Hyung?”

“I miss you,” Jinki admits.

There’s a pause in the air after his admission, as if the world has stilled around them. “I’m—I’m right here, hyung,” Jonghyun consoles even as the hug grows a little painful. He doesn’t try to leave or to pry them apart. He stays. “I’m here, see?”

“I miss you,” Jinki repeats, holding the other’s jaw, leaning their foreheads together. “I miss you so much.”

Sometimes, Jonghyun is frustrated with the speed of life. Sometimes, he’s inconsolable and refuses to leave their bed; refuses to eat or sleep or even talk. Sometimes he finds ways to steal more of Jinki’s attention than he really needs. Sometimes his worries are big enough to rival planets, and he can’t find the words to even begin describing them. Sometimes he sobs and yells and tears at his hair because no one understands him. No one truly understands who he is or what makes him. Not even Jinki—despite all the love and the attention he gives, despite his concern and comforting rationality, not even a man like him can fully decipher what is at the core of Jonghyun. But tonight, he shows no weakness. He shines bright as a star, holding a twinkle in his eyes and a supernova in the warmth of his hands. Tonight, Jonghyun is not the one who needs consoling.

He cranes back to join their gazes. “Hyung,” he whispers, a smile playing on his lips. “I’m here.”


	12. [Jinki / Gwiboon] 너만이 유일한 구원인 걸

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 이 사랑 부서지지 않게  
>  아무 데도 가지 않을게  
>  머물고 싶어 너의 곁에  
>  The way you are

“Oh! Officer Lee,” her husband greets in a cheerful tone. “You’re just in time for some tea!”

The man in question stands to attention and gives a crisp salute to his captain. He looks impressive in his spotless white uniform and vibrant red _kepi_. The golden embroidery of the chrysanthemum emblem on his chest is a place Gwiboon is very familiar with. She offers a faint smile in his direction even when his gaze remains unwavering on the man of the house.

“Thank you, sir. This is very kind.” He takes a seat across the table from her, the shade of the umbrella relaxing his features. His Japanese is a little accented, but he’s far more proficient now than he used to be when she first started teaching him.

“Madam,” he bows his head to her.

“Jinki kun,” Gwiboon pours him a cup. “How good to have you visit us again. My husband is always singing your praises. You must tell me what spell you’ve cast on him,” she says with a tongue in her cheek.

“Hoh! Nonsense, dear,” the captain tuts. “It is simply that finding someone so loyal and pro-Japanese as this one here is very difficult these days!” he claps a hand on Jinki’s shoulder. “Of course, it would be even better if he converted his name...”

“I’ll put in the application right away, sir.”

“Haha, all in good time, all in good time,” Gwiboon’s husband allows in a friendly tone. In truth, the only reason he isn’t being more forceful about the issue is because Jinki’s family has close ties with the royals. And royals bring money to fill coffers emptied by a distant war.

Jinki takes a sip from his cup. “I have just been summoned to Kanko, sir. To see to a few unruly prisoners.”

“I heard, I heard,” the captain nods. “Usual trouble, I assume? Give them an inch and they take a mile, those bloody rats.” He’s talking of course, about the Korean independence fighters that are kept locked up without food or warmth for days in the most inhumane conditions. It seems to escape him that his wife is Korean—as is his subordinate, and a majority of the serving staff in their home. But they all listen quietly, biding their time.

“Ah, but! With you there, I’ll have nothing to worry about, hah!” the man continues. “Make sure you give my regards to the gaoler there. Kinpachi is a good man.”

“I’ll take a gift on your behalf, sir.”

“Yes! Yes, a bottle of our finest whiskey. Do that. The heavens know that man needs it. Haha!” Another clap on the shoulder. “This is why we like promising young men like you.”

“You’re very kind, sir.”

Gwiboon notes the exchange with no outward interest, but if Jinki is going to Kanko— _Hamhung_ , she corrects herself—then he’ll need warm clothes. She makes a mental note to find a few coats and mufflers for him.

“And? What news from elsewhere?” her husband cuts into her thoughts. “I see you going to Asuka hotel quite often. Don’t tell me you have a special lady there?” the captain teases with a nudge.

Gwiboon gulps, but Jinki is so calm as he chuckles she almost expects him to admit the truth. And he nearly does. “I suppose I’ve been caught, sir,” he nods. “There is someone. A dancer at one of the clubs. She’s very talented, too.”

“In many ways, I’m sure,” Gwiboon’s husband repeatedly pokes at Jinki’s chest, right in the middle of the chrysanthemum. “Ah, that’s a shame. You’ve got someone, then. And here I was, hoping to introduce you to a nice Japanese girl from a respectable family. I suppose I should’ve known you had different tastes, haha!”

“You embarrass me, sir,” Jinki humors the man.

They continue to make small talk for a while until the captain notices something. “Officer Lee,” he begins with concern. “You keep rolling your shoulders like that. What’s the matter?”

Jinki hesitates. “Ah. I apologise for my rudeness, sir. I seem to have pulled a muscle.”

“No, no, that won’t do at all!” her husband says. “A man as busy as you cannot be ailing. My Gwiboon is very good with her hands. Helps a lot with my bad knee. Dear,” he turns to her. “Why don’t you do something for the poor man?”

“Certainly,” Gwiboon stands and starts walking around the table even as Jinki begins a stuttering protest.

“Madam, I couldn’t possibly—”

“You are a guest,” she insists, taking hold of his shoulders and giving them a hard squeeze, harder than necessary. She feels him stiffen even more under her touch and silently rejoices, knowing his weaknesses inside-out.

Several hours later, nearly in the middle of the night, she arrives at Asuka hidden under a _jangot_ so no one will recognize her.

Her feet don’t even fully breach the threshold before she is slammed back against the door, the ties of her hanbok attacked with the same ferocity as her mouth. Jinki is already in nothing but his undershirt, the zipper on his pants loosened and biting against her thigh when she raises a leg and giggles at his urgency. He enters her with less than half the force he uses to pull her clothes away—so slow, so careful that she has no choice but to gift him with her best moans, holding the sides of his head as he leans in for another, gentler kiss.

“I didn’t know my hands could do that to a man,” she teases, gasping.

“You don’t know a lot of things, Kim Gwiboon,” he grunts, snapping his hips into her and making her laugh.

Lying in bed, he still can’t keep his hands off of her. She gives him little pecks as he continues to explore her skin. He feels so warm, like there are a thousand lamps living inside of him, keeping him alive. And every time her lips touch him they seem to glow brighter.

“How long are you gone this time?” she ghosts her fingers along his shoulder.

“Hmm… could be days, could be weeks,” he mutters sleepily. “Can’t say.”

“I want you to say.”

He rises on his elbow and watches her with an interested smile. She stares back, drawing circles across his chest. At first glance he seems cut out of the worst imperialist cloth— _kenpeitai_ , bowing to his slavers and spouting pro-government propaganda to his own countrymen. At first, Gwiboon had felt like spitting in Jinki’s face, even though she must’ve looked worse to him. But there is more to him, just as there is more to her. They serve a higher purpose, but do it in the shadows. The national resistance is carefully building momentum even as they lie here and breathe in each other’s embrace. The streets are filling with stories of courage, of unimaginable bravery when citizens stand up to their oppressors’ wooden swords with nothing but their defiant arms.

“Listen,” he whispers, trailing his touch on her stomach. “There’s a passage opening soon. To the south.”

She turns her head to see him better, frowning up at his suddenly serious face. “South?”

“New Zealand,” he nods. “It’s small, it’s quiet. We could go there, have a safer life. Work on a farm, maybe.”

“There’s a war coming,” she scoffs at him. “Haven’t you heard what’s happening in Europe? Nowhere will be safe!”

“We’ll be fine as long as we leave fast. We—we could go as soon as I’m back,” he insists. “Boonie… we could have a better life than this,” he motions to the room around them.

She rises too, leveling their eyes and scowling at him. This isn’t like him at all. This isn’t the Jinki she knows. He would never run from the fight. He would never hide like a coward. He would be the first to run into battle, first to fling a bomb with all his might at the enemy. She studies the concern lining his face with care, touching every curve and angle with her fingertips. It is only after she feels his breaths crush against her palm that she realizes what this is, gasping in comprehension. This is his offer of protection, his way of keeping her safe. She has changed him so much that he is willing to consider a peaceful and long life with her. He is willing to consider running away, because of her. 

And she feels so much love for him in that moment, that it wells in her eyes and drips off her nose. “I won’t leave,” she shakes her head, taking hold of his jaw. “I won’t go away. Not until we’re free.”


	13. [Eunsook / Minjung] Don't Stop, Get It Get It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 알아 니가 뭘 원하는지  
>  말 안해도나는 느끼지  
>  I can see that  
> 

It’s not that Eunsook is a bad person or anything, but sometimes Minjung just can’t stand her.

“Eonnie~” she calls attention to herself, pressing the soft pink dress to her front. “What do you think?” she asks expectantly, pleased with herself at finding something on sale that she wouldn’t mind wearing. It seems like it’ll fit her, despite her height and small dimensions. It seems comfortable.

“Hmm?” Looking up from her phone, a disinterested Eunsook gives her a once-over before returning to whatever game she’s trying to get a high score on. “Minjunggie looks even better in nothing,” she offers in a sing-song voice. Amidst her coolness, there is the faintest hint of a smile on the corner of her lips. She’s not just playing on her phone, Minjung realises.

“So annoying...” she huffs and returns the dress to its place, acting as if her face is completely fine. It’s not burning or anything. No, not at all. She walks away towards a different section of the store, passing by more clothes and shoes but not stopping anywhere. She couldn’t handle any more comments from the other.

When they’re having lunch in the food court, Minjung smiles and holds out a piece of her chicken before playfully retracting the offering and gobbling it herself. She giggles at Eunsook’s slightly betrayed expression, pleased with herself.

“Hmm... Minjunggie’s always eating so well,” Eunsook begins in a bland and misleading tone. “Is that why you taste good?”

Minjung gasps and glares. “Eonnie...” she warns. Heat creeps down her neck and spreads across her chest.

“Maybe I’ll eat well too, tonight. Can’t wait,” Eunsook continues unfazed, picking at her fries. Truthfully, she deserves a kick under the table. She deserves being left here by herself as Minjung storms off back to the parking lot and fumes until the elder runs after her and apologizes at least a thousand times. But they end up finishing their lunch in silence, and then head to the multiplex wing.

During the movie, Minjung follows the plot as best as she can. She’s never been a fan of foreign action films, they’re just an excuse to eat popcorn and sit in a darkened hall for long hours. No, she prefers cuddling up at home to watch an old film from her mother’s generation. She likes the romance of black-and-white cinema, the poise of actresses from an era long gone. She likes the way she and Eunsook spend time after, discussing the film and the emotions they inspired in them.

With a yawn, she reaches for the popcorn when someone hoots in the hall. She turns to the screen and finds a well-endowed woman slowly unzipping her jacket. More howls go up around them. Minjung frowns and shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

Eunsook seems to notice and takes her hand in a comforting gesture. The action is sweet and consoling. Minjung leans into it.

“You know,” the other whispers when they're close enough “I like yours better. Easy to fit in my mouth—”

“Ah, really!” Minjung complains, jerking away from the other. Some other moviegoers turn in their seats to shush her. She scowls at them, foot bouncing impatiently before yanking her hand away from Eunsook.

 _I’m going to the bathroom_ , she texts as she rushes in the direction of the signs.

_Want me to come help?_

_No!_

At the sink, she splashes her face with water. Twice. Her chest is pounding. Her breath feels hot enough that she wouldn’t be surprised if she began issuing steam all of a sudden. It’s not that Eunsook is a bad person or anything, but sometimes she likes to toy with Minjung. It always comes as a shock because she’s usually so sweet and kind. She usually radiates so much warmth and protection. She usually cherishes Minjung, gives her love and attention and encouragement. But sometimes she says things that make her sound wild. Sometimes she finds buttons on Minjung that she pushes and pushes until they make her feel faint.

From the mirror, her reflection stares back at her. Its face is red. Its lashes drip water. She’s never been good at accepting defeat. She’s never given up easily. She always pushes back.

Aiming the front camera at her face, Minjung musses her hair and bites into her lower lip before clicking. Her fingers shake a little when she presses _send_ , then gasps when she notices it being read immediately. There is triumph in that fact. There’s also some panic. She begins yanking out tissues to dry her face and get out of the bathroom before—

The door swings open wide. Eunsook blinks at her a moment, assessing the way she looks. Then she walks closer. Her eyes are as dark as her jet black hair. Her gait is as measured as her stare, raking over Minjung’s body with a strange hunger. Even so, she has the presence of mind to check each and every stall she passes, making sure they’re well and truly alone. Eunsook looks a little dangerous in that moment. She looks like she’s about to end a long hunt.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demands in the softest murmur. It sends a hundred ripples down Minjung’s spine. She can’t tell anymore if it’s fear or anticipation.

“I—I’m doing what you’re doing,” Minjung argues. “Y-you know I don’t like it when—”

“When I make you wet?” Eunsook cuts in. “When people can tell you’ve soaked your panties even before I touch you?”

“That’s not true...!”

“Oh?” Eunsook challenges. “Then why don’t you come back? Finish the movie. We’ll go see a few more shops after. In fact,” she crosses her arms. “Let’s see how long we can stay out while you keep dripping down your legs.”

Minjung shakes her head. “That’s not how it is,” she whines. 

“Then how is it?” 

It’s not that Eunsook is a bad person or anything, but no one has ever wanted Minjung so much. No one has ever called her beautiful, or perfect. No one ever looks at her with so much adulation and veneration and sympathy and curiosity and love, zeal, desire. A thousand different feelings. No one has ever wanted to touch her or taste her or kiss her until she starts running out of breath. No one has been so addicted to her—and that’s what it really is. Eunsook is addicted. She holds a large, all-engulfing obsession inside her that she doesn’t even try to hide. She wears her insanity with pride. 

And some of it infects Minjung. 

“Home,” she sniffles, gripping the other’s wrists. “Take me home. Please.”

All the coldness in Eunsook’s gaze instantly melts. She's won another round. “OK, sweetie,” she nods. “Let’s go home.”


	14. [Jinki / Taemin] 니 앞에 서면 난 목이 말라와

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 아무리 넘쳐도 모자라  
>  아직 네 사랑에 목말라  
>  Oh 단 한 모금만 더  
>  Baby, you know what I want

Jinki must think he’s just noise, that he only talks for shock value and nothing else. Taemin doesn’t really give a shit about what other people think but when it comes to Jinki... he has to hold himself back from defending himself.

“I mean,” he shrugs as he takes off his shirt. “Junghee noona says they’re real, so.”

“She says a lot of things,” Jinki chuckles, pulling off each leg of his pants in turn. “You shouldn’t take her too seriously.”

“If she heard you say that she’d probably try to stab you,” Taemin points out, throwing his socks away. “Actually, how come you never say anything to her face, eh? You’re bitching now, but when we hang out with the girls you’re always... schmoozing her ear off with how well she’s done with that online shopping thing.”

“I was giving her a genuine compliment,” Jinki justifies. “And praising someone for their business acumen is different from wanting their advice on multiple orgasms.”

Taemin tuts in annoyance, standing in nothing but his underwear and rubbing his hands over his tired face. “But I really want them...” he whines. “Eh? Can’t you do something? Anything? Maybe read some kind of journal article—is there research on this?” He immediately sets about looking for his phone in the pile of discarded clothing. Before he can log onto his old university account, the other is closing in with his hands and lips.

“Hey...” Jinki whispers, kissing across the back of Taemin’s shoulders. “I can still make you feel good, you know?” This is technically true. Of all the people Taemin brings to his bed, Jinki makes his knees go the weakest. It must be something to do with how long they last together, or how comfortable the man’s hands feel on his hard and pulsing body. It could also be the fact that Jinki lets Taemin say whatever he likes, whenever he likes. It's relaxing: like farts let out from the mouth.

He closes his eyes and hums in appreciation as the kisses grow deeper against his skin, now inviting teeth to the exploration. “Will you give my taint a massage again?” he hushes. “I really liked that...”

“Hmm, you did?” Jinki mumbles between his travels on Taemin’s spine. “I can do that.”

They choose the sofa, wrapped around each other for a long time while Jinki's fingers weave in and out of Taemin. He’s always so careful, always so cautious about this stuff. He’s always making certain it doesn’t hurt, or if there’s enough lube, or if they’re absolutely sure they want to keep going. He’s too sweet. He’s like an unwanted hit of sugar when all Taemin craves is a whip of heat, hard and a little angry. And sometimes he voices this dissatisfaction too, whining about _not rough enough_. But even if he calmly considers all the criticism, Jinki’s too nice. He doesn’t change anything at all.

Still, it doesn’t take much to make Taemin happy. All the other does is slide in and take hold of him before continuing at a leisurely pace. Other men are selfish, they finish too fast and they don’t really care if it feels good. They want him like he’s takeaway at a fast food chain, only meant to sate an immediate hunger. But Jinki settles down to enjoy Taemin for a four-course meal. He appraises the way he looks, appreciates each morsel like it’s precious and exquisite and unmatched with anything else he’s ever eaten. And if he suddenly rushes because it’s the end and the dessert is in his sights, Taemin stops him, slows him again. He breathes only a command and Jinki is bending in, folding them together for a kiss while he presses in so deep it almost feels like they’re part of the same body.

This time, Jinki grins and pulls away. “Want to be on top?” he suggests.

“Ah, I get tired too fast...” Taemin complains.

“I can help with that,” the other nods, motioning for them to switch places. Soon he’s on his back and Taemin is facing away from him, slowly sinking down to take his whole length. Jinki thrusts up into him and they both let out a groan at the same time, feeling the clasp tighten with every jolt. As expected, Taemin falls backwards with a nasal moan, leaving Jinki to hold his thighs apart as he ruts, stroking him and sucking on the curve of his neck.

“Why don’t we—this one is so much better,” Taemin pants, his arms bracing him on either side. “Why don’t we do this all the time?!”

“Should we?” Jinki gives him a sweaty chuckle before twisting him and joining their mouths.

He says that, but a few minutes later he’s speeding up, gripping tighter, then stopping and moving away. When a needy, confused Taemin turns to look at him, he finds a full rubber and whines some more.

“I’m not even _close_ , hyung!”

“I can go again, don’t worry,” the other placates as he walks to the kitchen for a drink.

“You'll finish even faster then! I know you!” Taemin insists, slumping sideways. “Ah... I hate this. Why’re you so _old_? And selfish? Here I was, thinking I’ll have multiple orgasms like Junghee noona said she does.”

“She’s a woman, Tae yah. She can do that.”

“Not fair...”

He hears Jinki cleaning himself up before returning to his side. A sigh and a peck meets Taemin's hip bone. “Come on,” the other encourages. “Come here, we’ll try again.”

Taemin doesn’t move for a while. He’s come to learn that the longer he sulks, the longer Jinki stays. And sometimes Taemin wants him to stay forever.

“Come on,” he’s coaxed in a sweetened voice. “I’ll give you that massage.”

He peeks between he arms. “And your mouth?” he bargains.

There isn't even a moment of hesitation. Jinki laughs and nods, motioning for him to come closer. The bag of sugar is ripped down its side and starts heaping its contents onto Taemin, drowning him in the most saccharine ocean he can dream up. It makes him question his thirst, question if he really wants all that spice. It makes him doubt if the other men are actually worth his time after all.


	15. [Junghee / Kibum] I'm So Dizzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 어지러워 너를 볼 때면  
>  머리가 복잡해져  
>  또 널 내 품에 안을 때면  
> 

Taemin gives him a strange look. “You’re going to **her** again?” he asks, then spits before taking one last drag from his cigarette. “You should be careful. Don’t want to end up catching something.”

The seedy neighbourhood of Cheongnyangni 588 is quiet at this time of day. Not a lot of visitors trying to buy their way in and not a lot of policemen trying to shut the doors down. Kibum thinks its because they’re all too busy fighting each other outside city hall. _Freedom_ , he takes his turn to spit. He doesn’t need it. He’s happy with things as they are.

“I’m serious,” Taemin insists. “Who knows how many that bitch takes in a day. You could get in real trouble if—”

“Yeah, yeah, shit,” Kibum shrugs him off. “I’ll be careful.”

They leave their bikes behind and part ways, each going to their own favourite. Kibum supposes she is his favourite: no one else makes him want to check his breath or tidy his hair and jacket in a mirror before he walks in.

The silence feels good. Even if it presses down on some parts of her, the silence feels good to Junghee. She likes to sit by the window and stare at the world outside. These walls, this glass, is selectively permeable. Not every man makes it in, and not every woman makes it out. But some things don’t need any barriers. They swim through freely until she can gather them in her arms and consider their weight in the silence.

“One for you,” the old lady stirs her from her thoughts. “Regular. And do something about your damn hair, will you?”

Junghee quickly checks her reflection and dabs some red lipstick on before hurrying to the bed. She takes a deep breath and positions herself, arms up and legs crossed, waiting for the door to open again.

“You look good like that,” she hears a deep gravelly voice address her after a minute.

She opens her eyes and smiles. “Oppa...” she begins in a practiced warm tone. “I missed you.”

“How many times have you said that today?” he jokes, but there’s a small hint of jealousy in his dark eyes. It’s always there, when he looks at her. It’s always swimming up to study her like a hawk. She’d been surprised to see it the first time, but now she’s used to it. She’s used to him.

“Come on...” she replies playfully, turning over to her side and leaning up on her elbow. Despite her age, she tries to act young and girly. “You know I’m always waiting for you.”

He stares at her for a little longer, judging. Maybe doing some weighing of his own. “Got you a gift,” he finally says and throws a thick length of plastic at her.

She fumbles before catching it, letting out a silly giggle and moving to sit up, her motions deliberate and slow, her voice heavy and a little wanton. It’s as long as her palm, this thing, and has a very strange shape. Almost like a—

“What is it, oppa? What does it—ah!” she gasps in genuine surprise as the thing begins to vibrate when she clicks a button.

“Oh!” she hushes.

“Yeah... Taemin’s cousin sent it from America with some cassettes,” Kibum explains. “Don’t ask me how it works.”

She knows how it works. She isn’t stupid. In fact, she’d been studying mechanics and acoustics at university for two whole years before—

“What’s it for?” Junghee grins.

He takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” his hand lands on her leg, slowly and with the familiarity of an old lover. It starts as his fingertips, walking from her knee to the inside of her thigh. Then he changes it into a palm against the join of her legs, pressing in gently as if checking for something. Maybe it’s the pace, but Junghee doesn’t feel the same shock she does as with other visitors. Then again, Kibum isn’t like other visitors. He often brings gifts and often pays for more than the usual hour, talking to her about the things he’d like to do if he landed in some money. She humors him, but she suspects he might be a little obsessed with her.

“What do you say?” he whispers before sucking at her cheek in a wet kiss.

“Thank you, oppa,” she smiles and returns the stick to him, readying herself for whatever is to come.

There are several reasons to prefer Junghee over the other women he's bought the services of. For one, she’s clean—Kibum doesn’t like it if he can smell sex and sweat from a previous customer when he enters the room. Even her body doesn’t ever keep any traces that he doesn’t recognize as his own.

She’s pleasant, too. He knows it’s a hard life being a working girl, but who doesn’t have a hard life these days? The police are everywhere, stopping and suspecting everyone, locking up innocents and beating the daylights out of young students. There isn’t always enough food, there isn’t always enough warmth. Year after year, the rich stay rich and the poor are lucky to survive winter. Sometimes, dying feels easier than trying to make a living. Sometimes—

“Oppa,” Junghee rakes her fingers through his hair and pulls him out of his reverie. “Hurry up and play with me~” she wiggles and whines. This is what he likes. She knows how to act for a paying man, even if it’s all an act.

“OK, then~!” he quickly takes off his jacket and shirt, the dog tags around his neck clinking together as he pushes them back. His mouth makes its way directly to her stomach, her soft curved waist and the dark spot of her navel. What he likes the most about Junghee, what keeps him coming back, is how she tastes. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the soap she uses or something else, but every time his tongue skates over the gold of her skin he feels honeyed fireworks go off in his mouth. The sounds she makes when he traces her side with the buzzing toy, the wrap of her thigh around his waist when he slides his fingers into her heat, the small giggles she gifts him when he kneads her breast—she’s not like any working girl at all. Junghee doesn’t ask him what he likes, because **she** is what he likes. She makes him look forward to his hour with her.

He plays and bites and laughs. Kibum is like he always is—full of ideas that make him feel good. Unlike other customers, he isn’t rough. He doesn’t push for her to give him things she doesn’t have. He tries to make her feel good too. Not always, of course. But she doesn’t fake it with him as often as she does with most men. He watches her face too closely for that. And if he has a woman in his life that he doesn’t just pay to fuck, she imagines he must be good to her. She imagines he must have a few _pyeong_ of kindness inside him that hasn’t been broken by the world.

The toy is entertaining. It jiggles her skin where he presses it against her. His black eyes study her expressions carefully whenever he moves it an inch here or a measure there. He stares and chuckles, tickled by her own laughter.

“You like it?”

“Mm,” Junghee bites her lip and nods; plays her part in this charade.

“How much do you like it?” Kibum persists, bringing the toy to rest on her stomach.

“A lot~”

He grins and the toy travels lower, coming to a stop against her hard button. “And? How much do you like me?”

She lets out a gasp, but nods just the same. “A l-lot, oppa. I like you a lot.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t believe you,” he accuses in a light-hearted tone and shifts to kneel between her parted thighs. “Why don’t you prove it,” he murmurs and bends in, tongue immediately flicking and dancing and... maybe even worshipping her wetness. Or maybe that’s all in her imagination. Sitting in a room all day every day can do that to a woman, she supposes. Maybe the toy is adding to the effect, making her dizzy and curling her thoughts.

She grips his hair and sighs as he touches every part of her he can reach from his position. Her pleasure is building, her breath is stuttering, she can hear her pulse bouncing like a fish out of water.

“O-oppa...” she pats his shoulder.

Kibum stays against her folds. It’s the only way to be sure a woman isn’t lying. He takes lies like that as an insult to his manhood—that he can’t even please a woman, that he can’t even do something so simple. No, he doesn’t allow that. He likes tasting them as they quiver on his mouth, calling his name or warning him before they gush. He likes to be in control like that, pleasuring them until they’re so shaken they can’t speak for a few moments. 

“Oppa...!”

He moves quickly, hardness easily sliding into her warmth while the toy is still pinned against her clit. She gives a loud cry, arching upwards, scratching at his shoulders. He can feel her clenching around him like a tight silk glove.

“Ohh... maybe you weren’t lying after all, huh?” he grunts, nearly spilling out with every convulsion. Sweat spills down his back and forehead. “Maybe you do like me a lot.”

She stammers, makes an attempt at responding. He snickers, holds their foreheads together, but really he’s trying to hold back from letting his hips go. He doesn’t want this to end. He doesn’t want her to be done. He wants to drag this out as long as he can, so he can watch her crumble beneath his touch. Laying against her, lips on her neck, he moves slowly, surprised by his vibrating gift sandwiched between them.

“Fuck...” he lets out on her cheek. It does feel good.

The pleasure has long surpassed its usual potency. Junghee hears herself whimpering but she isn’t making those sounds. It isn’t her body undulating under his weight. It isn’t her heart racing or her lungs struggling to keep up. It isn’t her. This is someone else. It has to be. Junghee isn’t capable of feeling like this. She can’t feel this good, she no longer has that ability. It’s gone. It’s been erased. It was yanked from her when she stopped being herself and turned into this. An object. A commodity. Something to be chosen from the other side of a selectively permeable plane of glass, and bought for a few thousand won’s worth of pleasure. This is not her. Kibum is holding someone else. He is touching someone else. He's breathing on someone else. He's trying to kiss someone else—

“S-stop!” she manages to chew out when her vision is gone and her limbs aren’t in her control anymore. “Stop!”

With one last semblance of cognizance, her leg kicks him off when he doesn’t pull away fast enough. His weight stumbles off the bed in a disarray of limbs and metal necklace. The toy clatters to the ground too, its sound a harsh grating against the floor until it is switched off. In the ensuing silence everything has changed. They are no longer on opposing sides of a transaction. They've twisted a simple give-and-take into something unrecognizable; something that she doesn't dare name. Doesn't dare to look at.

She curls up against a pillow, clutching it between her thighs, sobbing into its soft mass.

“Yah...” Kibum’s voice comes as if from deep underwater. When his hand touches her hip, it feels warm. It feels gentle. “Yah. Are you—?”

“W-why would you do that...?” she demands, shrinking away from his touch.

He watches her sit up, shakily reaching for her clothes. She’s crying. He suddenly feels guilt burrow into his chest.

“Why would you do that?” she asks in a more forceful voice. The kind of voice that usually earns its speaker a lot of violent trouble from him.

But not her. Never her.

Why **would** Kibum do that? Why does he do anything, really? Why does he come here so often? Why does he always ask for her? Why does he spend so long in this room, talking for hours? Why does he feel so... steady when he is with her? Why does he wish he knew what she feels like when she’s with him? Why does he sometimes wonder what her life must’ve been like before she was thrown in here, before the debt collector trapped her in this place and walked away with the key? Why does he sometimes imagine what her life would’ve been like were she not stuck here? Why does he want to know if she would live a quiet life as a wife or mother or just by herself... or if she’d be at city hall right now, clamouring with the rest of the country? Fighting for freedom, wielding her arms as weapons, rattling her cage until it falls to pieces around her.

 _Why would you do this_ , he asks himself when she glares down at him.

“You know why,” he murmurs.


	16. [Junghee / Minjung] 더는 숨길 필요 없어

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 다시 널 또 내 쪽으로 당기네  
>  멈춘 시곗바늘 다 돌렸네  
>  Oh-oh 있잖아  
>  오늘은 나만 바라봐 줘  
> 

When she’s worked the last hairpin holding her veil on, Junghee sets the lace aside and lets out a long huff of air. Pulling on a wad of cotton, she starts taking off her makeup. _Gwiboon can really go overboard sometimes,_ she tuts.

“Ah… tired,” Minjung calls from the bed in an equally exhausted voice. She’s still in her hanbok too. It took them so long to get ready that morning, they both want to stay like this a while longer, even though they've spent the last six hours dancing and entertaining guests and posing for photos. After all, it isn’t every day that they get to dress up in such nice clothes.

“Hey,” Junghee turns in her chair, draping her arms over the backrest.

Minjung hums, then lifts up on her elbows to look at her. When their eyes meet, they both grin. “Hey.”

“I just got married,” Junghee giggles.

Minjung gasps for show. “So did I!”

“Going on a honeymoon soon too, you know,” she’s told in a snobby tone. “To a really nice place. Tropical, room with a private pool, overlooking the beach. I hear the weather’s going to be brilliant.”

Minjung balks, faltering in the game. “R-really?” she asks with a serious look.

Junghee can’t help but snort, then laugh harder at the other’s pout. She lazily gets up and walks over, throwing herself to lie beside the other. “If only we could afford it,” she says to the ceiling. “How nice would that be, hmm?”

“Mm,” Minjung nods, taking her turn to sigh.

They stay silent for a while, and Junghee turns to look at the other, trying to guess what she’s thinking. Is she imagining them on that honeymoon right now, wading through the waves in their swimsuits? Or is she thinking back to the ceremony, when her brother hugged her for a very long time—long enough, Junghee supposed, to make up for the absence of their parents. She can’t tell. She doesn’t know what the woman next to her is thinking, and sometimes she wishes that weren’t so. Sometimes Junghee wants to top of Minjung’s head to be fully transparent, so she can peek in whenever she likes and pick out any of the thousand musings fluttering in the space, reading them like words in an open book.

But what makes Minjung perfect is this imperfection: how little she gives away of herself, how much she keeps locked inside.

“Hey,” Junghee murmurs to the side of the other's face. “Just got married.”

Minjung turns to look at her with a bemused smile. “You said,” she nods, then links their fingers above her stomach. “Is she pretty? Your wife?”

Junghee scrunches her nose in distaste. “She’s not my _wife_.”

Big brown eyes blink in response. “She’s… not?”

“Mm,” Junghee shakes her head, craning in to kiss the other’s nose. “She’s the love of my life.”

“Oh…” Minjung blushes, grinning wide. She covers her heating face, hiding it behind her hand before she’s tickled into peals of laughter. Her eyes water, her breath gets difficult, she tries to swat at the air and crawl away after a while. And when Junghee stops her little game, she still can’t keep her hands off.

Caressing and massaging over the dress, she places a soft kiss on the other’s neck before moving even closer.

It doesn’t take much longer for the dresses to start coming off. Minjung insists they fold and store them carefully, but Junghee is too impatient for that. One by one they work to their skins, until white lace and rainbow silk lie in a jumbled pile on the carpet. All that's left on Minjung's body now are the two red dots stuck on her face, and a wedding ring.

Junghee trails her lips over a smooth long leg, stopping on the crease of her pelvis. “Hmm, you smell so nice,” she murmurs.

“Y-you always say that—” Minjung stutters, then grins down at her. “Is that your mating sense tingling?” She gives a little squeal when she’s playfully spanked.

“Like I’m some animal,” Junghee giggles, but she wonders if there’s a hidden question in that. “In any case,” she tries, hands kneading the other’s thighs, keeping her tone conversational. “I know we’ll never agree on it.”

“Hmm?” Minjung smiles.

“I want a daughter,” Junghee clarifies between kisses to a knee, a calf, an ankle. “But I know you want a baby boy.”

There’s a little hesitation, a little dimming in her smile, but Minjung nods. “We’ll never agree,” she murmurs sweetly.

“So let’s have both,” Junghee shrugs.

Minjung grows completely serious at that. “What…?”

“I mean, we’ll wait a few years, of course. Get a promotion. Maybe buy a house. You know, have a stable enough life to bring kids into the picture—”

“We can’t,” Minjung stops her.

Junghee considers her for a moment before crawling over to level their gazes. “We can,” she assures, caressing a chestnut braid. “Because that’s what we want. And if we can’t do it here,” she speaks over the other before she can fully protest and point out the flaws in that plan. “We’ll go somewhere else. Where we can live how we want to live.”

The big brown eyes turn a little watery. “You really mean that,” Minjung asks in a quiet whisper. “You’d really leave your family here for me—?”

“For us,” Junghee bends in and touches their foreheads together. “It’s for us.”

They stay coiled around each other for a long time, legs scissored and breath heavy. Junghee’s hips move smooth and slow, relishing the slickness of their join. She never takes her mouth of the other’s sweaty skin, never takes her eyes off the other’s beautiful face. Because Minjung does look beautiful, unbelievably so, when she’s so completely unguarded like this. When they’re so completely one. There are moments in their days together when Junghee wonders what strange turn of fate has brought them together: one so brilliant and compassionate as Minjung, and one so mediocre and unassuming as herself. There are moments in their nights—not unlike this moment, when Minjung hushes her name out of sweet cherry lips—when she worries the other will notice this large valley between them and decide to leave.

Maybe that was part of the reason she’d bought the ring. Maybe she’d thought it could hold Minjung down, keep her in Junghee’s arms. But Sodam had listened to her worries three nights ago as they ordered the flowers and made last minute changes to the reception wine, and she had scoffed.

“If you’re so unwanted,” she’d pointed out. “Why did Minjunggie say yes?”

The heat of her blood is dizzying, the rush along her spine is electric. Junghee could sing a little, maybe even scream a little when long fingers claw at her rear. Once or twice, she bends in and swallows Minjung into a kiss. Once or twice, Minjung flips them over so she is in control, whimpering when she’s close and glowing when she spills out between them. Once or twice, they slip on each other with frenzied movements before returning to an unbearably slow grind of hips. Giddy with pleasure, Junghee laughs and Minjung laughs along, their hands locking in one last kiss before they still and collapse next to each other.

“And…” Minjung tries to steady her breath. “And if you change your mind?” she asks, her panting doing nothing to mask the sudden swell of anxiety. “If you regret doing this—?”

“Then we’ll work it out,” Junghee assures, because knows now. She understands. Neither of their imperfections matter, what matters is their love.

“Whatever it is, we’ll do it together.”


	17. [Jonghyun / Taemin] Take You To The Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 잡생각 좀 다 치워  
>  얌전한 척 다 치워 너 홀로 있을 때  
>  상상했던 그 Fantasy  
>  속에서 너 뭘 했는지  
> 

What does it mean to be loved?

“Hey there. Thanks for reaching out,” Jonghyun says to no one in the shower, practicing a conversation that will never take place. He makes scenarios in his mind and forgets them, over and over. He creates and perfects his responses to the compassion and attention and love he does not receive. This is how he comforts himself. This is his way of self-assurance that he hasn’t been forgotten. That people remember him. They may not say it so often, and they may not write regularly to tell him as much. But he does matter to them. He is important to them.

What does it mean to be loved?

The flight out between Earth and Luna station is not very long, but he likes to remain strapped in his seat for the duration. When he was a boy, he would dream of one day unclicking the latch and floating through the cabin, performing somersaults in zero g as he laughed the fabricated air from his lungs. But it took him too many years to be able to make this journey, and now he is too old. Now his body would look awkward and sad as he drifts along the aisle. This is a dream he wants to keep to himself, never to be shared with the rest of the world.

They are headed up for two years of regimented maintenance work on various refinery plants and transportation outposts on the moon. Jonghyun has done this several times before—two years of duty in the dusty plains and then several months of recovery on earth to regain the loss in bone density. It should feel like a relief to return to a place where breath isn’t measured. But every time he goes home his mother looks older and his noona’s smiles don’t reach as far out as her eyes. They stop somewhere on their journey, as if lost in space.

He once considered not returning.

“Hey there. Thanks for reaching out. I appreciate the offer of a complimentary slingshot ride to Wenchang Launch Site, but I think it would be best if I simply continued my shift here indefinitely.” He’d briefly considered it before his water ration spluttered out and he was left to wrestle with other thoughts.

What does it mean to be loved?

Work is tedious. The food looks and tastes like soggy cardboard. Sleep evades him. Being on Luna station doesn’t always feel like he is realising his ambitions, but once in a while when his account is topped up with more credits than expected, he feels some warmth in the centre of his chest. “Hey there. Thanks for reaching out. Just wanted to say I’m really grateful for the recent bonus, and I know my family back on Earth will appreciate the gesture too.” He types the words out in his head and promptly deletes them.

The others who work on the same base as him keep to themselves too. Some separate into groups, some pair off and head for the urban centres where the fashionable cafes are located. He watches them fragment off of their mass when break hour is announced, leaving stragglers like him. He watches their backs and wonders why the people who built on the moon decided to build it in the image of the planet they’d left behind. Why does this place mimic all of Earth’s lonely vastness despite being so small and cramped?

At a rest area, a hot drink is offered to him at a highly discounted price: the overalls that mark him as an Earther are sometimes invitation for unwarranted kindnesses. He doesn’t ever refuse. He caresses the drink and looks out of the convex bubble glass at humans and machines surviving the dead grey landscape of their regolith desert.

What does it mean to be loved?

The man doesn’t ask if he can sit at the table, he simply pulls out the seat across from Jonghyun. “So,” his voice is neither amicable nor hostile. It idles in an unfamiliar middle. “You’re back.”

Jonghyun doesn’t know how to respond. He has never met a native, much less conversed with one—and from the way the guy is dressed in the most enviable clothes of anyone in their immediate vicinity, his origin in a dead giveaway. They like to call themselves natives but really, they’re just the great-great-grandchildren of the first settlers, who built the domes and established the colony now known as Luna Station. Jonghyun doesn’t know much about birthing and fertility, but he’s sure lunar babies are more synthetic than flesh and bone. They would have to be, to retain any semblance of humanity in their appearances despite being born without the pressure of sunlight or real gravity.

“Yes,” he finally replies after a long awkward silence. He doesn’t know what else would be appropriate to add so he doesn’t. He reins his tongue back from its very short-lived gallop.

The other raises an invisible toast between them. “Welcome back, then.”

He could say thank you and leave. He could simply walk away from this. He could return to his shift early and clock in some extra hours, hope he’d get a special ration of water and oxygen in exchange for his diligence. He could be how he always is. But the stranger holds his gaze for a long time, not shying away and not holding any hint of self-consciousness. His ears are pierced with metal tusks, his fingers are adorned with silver rings, his lips are smiling with secrets they wait to spill out into the artificial air.

So Jonghyun extends his hand for a shake and introduces himself.

What does it mean to be loved?

They call him Tae, which is short for the not-much-longer Taemin. He is a Lee, the direct descendent of one of the Five Dragons of the moon. It shines through in his careless spending: Tae 3D prints whatever new outfit strikes his fancy. He buys whatever raw consumables he likes the sound of, with no regard for their use or price. He travels station to waiting station all day meeting his friends, lounging with his lovers, doing as he pleases. He is happy to be anywhere, he is easily satisfied with the slightest stimulation. He is like a deity, Jonghyun thinks whenever they meet. Never discontent, always venturing into unknowns.

“Have you ever been to a cocktail party?” he asks one afternoon while they’re playing a rover simulation game in Tae’s extremely luxurious apartment.

“No,” Jonghyun replies truthfully.

“Do they have any of those on Earth?”

“They used to,” he’s told with a slow nod. “But alcohol is expensive. And lot of disease outbreaks happened and then—”

“You make Earth sound so sad,” Tae pauses the game and chuckles. “Isn’t it your home?”

Jonghyun gives a little smile. “Sorry.”

“And now you look sad too,” Tae reaches out to caress his cheek. “Do you miss it?”

The touch is strange, filled with nothing and everything in the same instant. Jonghyun knows what occupies the lives of the rich here. They party, they drink, they find someone to sleep with, and then do it all over again. Tae must be used to that sort of thing too, because his little gesture feels like throwaway generosity. But the cold of his rings bites into Jonghyun’s cheek, steadies him even as he instinctively thinks to jerk himself away from the contact.

What does it mean to be loved?

The refrain often climbs up his throat in his _hey there_ s and _thanks for reaching out_ s. As an applied engineer, Jonghyun is often stunned by the questions theoreticians ask themselves. While he chips away at data overloads and electrical malfunctions, his more accomplished colleagues spend their lives battling questions of existence and morality. They spend months framing their hypotheses, years searching through page upon page of analysis for any sign of success. Or even failure. He feels awe in their capabilities, secretly asking difficult questions in his own mind.

For example: does love have the same mass here as it does on Earth? Is it given as easily in such a controlled environment, or is it rationed too? If he ever experiences it, would it show up as another column on his weekly quota—air, water, data, love? Would love feel as it always did, or would it be weightless? Would it float around space, never really settling anywhere? Could it be manufactured like everything else on the moon, 3D printed to the exact dimensions and given the perfect shape so it would fit in one’s chest? What does it mean to be loved, so far away from everyone he loves?

He doesn’t know what the party is for but he shows up anyway. Tae had been adamant when pushing the invitation into his hand. _An experience to end all experiences,_ he’d promised with his usual self-assured smirk. The food is surprisingly good here too. Despite the strange faces hovering around him, measuring and assessing him, the atmosphere reminds him of home. The room is packed, the conversations are loud, the alcohol is free and so is the laughter.

“You know,” he’s approached by Tae’s elder brother. Taesun, he’s called, and Jonghyun wonders what the appeal is for such old-fashioned names. “Our parents seem to think you’re a good influence on the idiot,” the man says, lazily swirling a toothpick in his glass. He smells and sounds drunk, but so does everyone else in the room. “I’d agree, but you don’t look like the type he’d hang around for anything more than a quick fuck.”

“We aren’t like that,” Jonghyun clarifies. Tae touches him and holds him and caresses him, but not with the intensity of someone as young and indecorous as a lunar native with unlimited time and resources. They aren’t like that, he silently repeats to himself.

“Oh?” Taesun seems surprised. “And you’ve known each other... how long now? Six months?”

“Thereabouts.”

“Huh,” the other gives a little disbelieving laugh. “Never ceases to amaze me, that kid. Take tonight, for instance,” he motions around them. “Here we are, wondering why you haven’t been in his bed like everyone else on this damn station, and there he is signing a bloody _nikah_ contract that will hold him accountable for the rest of his life. Unbelievable,” he shakes his head.

What does it mean to be loved?

“Congratulations,” Jonghyun speaks into the communicator.

“What for?” Tae chuckles. “It isn’t really offcial till next year. Something about... being sure the projections are realistic or whatever. I don’t understand half the things they tell me.” He sighs, flaunting another luxury. “Do they have _nikahs_ on Earth?”

“Not like this, no,” Jonghyun explains. But really, he doesn’t know for sure either. He’s seen photos of his parents, in albums that live far in the depths of their cupboards. He’s heard processions on the street when a politician’s daughter is being carried from her old home to her new one. He’s heard of people around him, tying the knot, as they call it. But he has never seen the knot itself. He’s never felt its burden or its fortune. Even as his mother’s hair becomes more grey and Sodam’s face turns more wrinkled, they never ask him when he plans to settle down. If he plans on it. A wife, a child, a home, a family: there may never be an opportunity for him anyway, if the radiation gets to him first.

But how does he explain to Tae that there is no contract, no liability in his version of marriage? It sustains on the element of love, which as he theorizes, is not a zero sum game. Something is given, and it is returned in an approximation of its original quantity. Maybe far more, maybe far less. You feel thankful for everything you receive, you don’t let it sit unattended and unwanted just because it isn’t enough. There is no SI unit for measuring love, he wants to tell Tae, but he thinks it wouldn’t really mean anything to the other.

“Will you come meet her?” Tae asks. “She’s a Nabokov, you know. You work for her father. Maybe you’ll be thick as thieves, as you Earthers say.” His chuckle is the end of the conversation. He isn’t asking, he’s telling. Jonghyun must obey. He must play his role in this, even if it’s not his name or signature on the _nikah_.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

What does it mean to be loved?

“What’re you doing?” Tae calls out from the other side of the airlock. His fiancé may not be as charming or as touch-dependant as him, but she is a good spy. She tells him everything—how Jonghyun is performing at work, what his account looks like at the end of each cycle, how the only calls he ever makes are recordings sent home to Seoul, how his distracted humming echoes in the solitude of his tiny windowless residential unit. Tae has a map of Jonghyun's life now, carefully annotated with every shortcoming.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Jonghyun can hear the suit recycle his every exhale. He can hear the thump in his ribcage and the pulse in his fingertips. He can hear the reel of his thoughts screeching as its pulled taut, farther and farther out of reach. Tae's fists thump the plane of reinforced glass, leaving prints and fogged breath as he’s pulled back.

“Hey there. Thanks for reaching out. While I deeply appreciate your concern, after careful consideration of your offer of protection, I will have to decline.” He doesn’t say it out loud on the comms, because he doesn’t have to.

“Get back in, you’ve never done this before!” Tae yells. “Please, please, you’re being an idiot!”

He’s right. Jonghyun has never done this before. He’s never been out there, never walked the real surface of the moon, never seen the craters or the dust up close. This is a job for someone on the maintenance crew, and he would let them do it under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal circumstances. This is an emergency. This is a big problem, one that needs solving immediately or a large portion of the settlement will lose power. That may only mean a minor inconvenience on Earth, but up here, grid failures would stop the recyclers, the air pressure systems, the food printers. Up here it’s a matter of life and death

The hiss is so low, so drowned in the noise of everything else, that Jonghyun has to wait for the signal from the control room, just to be sure. The second airlock is open. He is now one with the moon.

What does it mean to be loved?

“Did you do it because you don’t care?” Tae sniffles. The intensity of his reaction doesn’t add up in Jonghyun’s mind. It baffles him that a careless young man like him could be so shaken up by something that, by all accounts should be insignificant to him. “Because your life doesn’t mean anything to you, is that it?! You think you can be reckless like that and no one will notice?”

“No,” Jonghyun shakes his head, frowning. “No, I wanted to be noticed. I... I didn't think anyone would.”

The admission seems to shock more than the two of them. It brings time to a standstill, it seems like, because Tae doesn’t look like he’s breathing.

“Why?”

There isn’t a coherent answer to that. He hasn’t had time to prepare it in the shower and the words are still raw, tasteless. _Hey there, thanks for reaching out. Not everyone does. In fact, no one does. People’s lives are too full of everything else to have room for more. So I make myself smaller and smaller and hope that maybe I’ll fit somewhere. Someday. But I’m so small now that I almost don’t exist. I don’t think I do. You could keep stretching your arm, you can keep waving it in the darkness, but you won’t touch me. You’ll keep missing me. I’ll be right in front of you, but you won’t see me._ He doesn’t want to say all that. He doesn’t want to sound so desperate and broken, not to someone who looks at him like Tae does. Not to someone with his kindness.

“I... just didn't,” he nods.

Tae scoffs. He dries his tears and pulls him by the hand, hugs him, strokes the back of his head like **he’s** in the wrong. Like this is all his mistake, and he has to fix it. His lips are soft on Jonghyun’s temples, on the shell of his ear. His embrace is tight and unsparing in affection. His murmuring words of consolation are lined with sweetness, with a generosity that isn’t just for show. It means something.

What does it mean to be loved? Jonghyun doesn’t know. But he thinks Tae could teach him.


	18. [Minjung / Kibum] 이렇게 약한 나인데

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 밤은 짙어져 내 맘속도 갈 곳 없어  
>  더 이상 센척 안해  
>  네가 떠난 이 공간 속에 못 있겠어  
>  더 못해 센척 안해  
> 

“I still don’t know why you think like that,” Kibum says at a red light.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Minjung dismisses.

“Jagi,” he starts in an exasperated tone.

“I said I **don’t** want to talk about it!” she loudly insists before turning her gaze away from him, once more looking out of the passenger window at the late traffic. It should be her in the driver’s seat right now, that’s what they’d decided before they set out for the party. But when it came to it, she didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be behind the wheel, considering the state she was in.

He sighs, tired and sleepy, but he secedes. The fight ends before it really begins. That had always been something she liked about him—his gallantry, his charm, the way he’s always so respectful to her. How many other men would she find in Seoul who hold doors open for a woman, not because they think she is weak and needs to be protected but because they want her to feel special when they’re together? How many others would treat her with his kindness and affection? Minjung doesn’t know, and she doesn’t want to find out either. She only wants to be with Kibum.

But all his chivalry means nothing when he casually brings his ex into the conversation. _She used to love this song,_ he’d say among other reminiscences. _She was a great dancer, she was so impatient about lifts, her boss used to make her do so much overtime._ He’s full of stories about the woman, the predecessor.

And Minjung isn’t really the jealous type, she understands the references are meaningless. Yet, there is always the niggling feeling in her head that makes her question if Kibum still likes her. Maybe her flaws become too apparent to him sometimes. Maybe he remembers his ex in the moments when Minjung’s deficiencies are in plain sight of anyone looking. She isn’t as young anymore, she isn’t as playful or energetic or spontaneous. In fact, on some days she spends their evenings by herself, reading or writing or just. Wasting time on her phone. Does this make Kibum have doubts about their relationship, she wonders. Does it make him think back to times when he had more than what she gives him?

They return home, Minjung hurriedly unlocking the door and slipping out of her shoes, scarf, coat. She doesn’t want to be around him when she’s like this, because they will end up talking. Rationality will come to her if they do that, she knows this. But she wants to stew in it for a while. She wants to be upset and angry, just for a few minutes.

They’ve been together so long, he understands her unspoken needs and keeps his distance. He doesn’t say anything, or even try to be in the same room as her as she furiously changes into pajamas and wipes off her make-up. Her exhausted face only emboldens the insecurities, and she finds herself weeping at her sad middle-aged reflection like she has completely given up on herself. It’s so childish, so embarrassing, but so very distressing.

The knock on their bedroom door doesn’t wait for her to reply. Kibum slinks in and sighs at the sight of her, slowly approaching to gather her in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers when she hides her face against his stomach. “I’m sorry.” He apologizes over and over, her hands clutching the hem of his shirt, her sobs shaking her entire frame. She wants to say she’s sorry too, for being so paranoid. For having such thin self-esteem that it collapses at the slightest pressure. But he picks up every piece of her and carries it in his arms, across the room and onto the mattress where he sits down next to her and continues to hush comfortingly.

“I’ll be better,” he nods, dabbing her teary cheeks even as she shakes her head at him. “I promise I’ll be better to you. And...” he leans in and kisses her forehead. “I know it’s not your job to see me get better. It’s not your responsibility to fix me. Or wait for me to fix myself. But... but I still want to be good to you and—”

“You are,” she sniffles. “You are. You’re very good to me.”

“But I still hurt you, don’t I?” His eyes are so sad, their darkness looks so gloomy in that moment. Once again, she can’t help but think he could leave her whenever he liked instead of staying on like this. Instead of trying to console her like this. 

“I still hurt you. And that’s my fault.”

She shakes her head again. “No. No, it’s not,” she wipes the back of her hand under her nose. “This isn’t anyone’s fault...” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, his fingers smoothing her hair back and his kisses pressing into her cheeks. “I... I just,” she tries.

He waits patiently for her to speak, watching her so intently, she’s reminded of their first date—so many years ago now, she’s surprised to find the memory at all, still alive and well in her head. He’d listened to her ramble about work and family and many, many random things like. Like he lived off of her voice. Like when she stopped talking he wouldn’t know how to keep going. How silly they were, she realises. How eager to move on from their pasts, how impatient to find out if they would be a good match for one another. And yet so much of that still remains in him.

“I don’t know if you love me anymore.”

He doesn’t try to quell her worries or laugh at her. He nods in understanding, taking both her hands in his own. “How do you want me to show you?” he asks.

“How should I prove myself?”

She doesn’t spell it out for him, she doesn’t say a word. When she hugs him again, he holds her so tight she groans at the pressure. It feels good to be held like that. It feels so validating, the rush of his breath against her ear, the splay of his fingers on her back, the easy solace that comes from being together for nearly five years. His embrace doesn’t surround her, it makes her a part of his body, an extension of his feelings for her. It leaves her so still and calm, she’s ready to fall asleep against the low thump of his chest.

He holds her like that for the rest of the night separating only to change out of his clothes before returning to snuggle under the blankets.

In the morning, she wakes to him humming as he brushes his teeth and parts the curtains. Its raining outside, almost stormy. Another weekend stuck indoors, she grumbles sleepily and turns her head away. With the room so warm and the blankets so soft, she could stay like this, flat on her stomach, for the rest of her life.

He chuckles at her and a few seconds after the bathroom sink streams, the bed shifts under his weight. “My pretty koala,” he teases, crawling over to her and kissing the back of her thigh.

She makes a complaining sound again when his lips climb up her leg until they’re at her butt. He gives the place a playful smack, forcing her to whine even more. “Come on,” he murmurs, the smack changing into a slow caress along the length of her back. “Breakfast time. You didn’t eat much at the party last night either.”

“Bad catering...” she answers.

“Really? I thought the lamb chop was—” he pauses before nipping at the curve of her rear. “Delicious~”

He chuckles when she throws a pillow at him. “Don’t get cute,” she reprimands. But even so, she quickly realises all her anxiety has melted away through the night. He’s warmed her so much, she feels like a completely different person.

“Hmm? Miss Minjung doesn’t think I’m cute?” the disappointment in his tone pulls her to sit up and plant kisses all over his face until he’s grinning and falling onto his back like a silly child.

“Yippie~” he squeals, making her giggle.

“Weirdo,” she says affectionately, laying against his chest. 


	19. [Gwiboon / Taeyeon] Black Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 낯선 금빛 태양을 삼킨 까만 눈동자  
>  In my dream  
>  멀어진다 해도 I'll see you in my dream  
>  In my dream  
> 

Their eyes meet from across the field. Taeyeon stills in her place, hand outstretched to the weeds and ready to pull at their clump. The eyes stare her down as if wanting to swallow her into their darkness; as if drinking up all the light around them is not enough, they want more.

When her fingers close on their target, the distraction makes her prick her thumb. She hisses, brings the prick of blood to her mouth and glares at her perpetrator—a wild rose.

“Careful,” Eunsook warns her. “They hide well.”

Taeyeon grumbles under her breath about early warnings, but doesn’t repeat her words aloud when she’s asked to. Scrapes and bruises are common when working in the orchard, sometimes broken bones too. But despite how the others may treat her, she isn’t a child to complain about a little cut. Precarious of the wound, she continues her work.

It is tiring, to say the least. She spends hours with bent back, skin roasting under the sun. They direct her to clear the field so it would be ready for when Junghee plows and sows in a few days. She pulls the weeds, digs out the rocks, breaks clumps of dirt until they no longer stick and suffocate the soil. It is tiring but she is thorough, and she is diligent.

They do this every year, waiting for the clouds and praying for the grain. They do this over and over until they are rewarded with yield to circulate among the people. Equal shares for everyone, that is the law, even if the share is too small some years and Taeyeon feels like she will disappear from hunger.

The end of the day is a welcome respite. She groans as she kneads the underside of her feet, just like Eunsook taught her. It gives her some relief, even if there’s none to be had for her back.

“You left this behind,” a voice murmurs to her before a familiar flower is placed in her lap.

She looks up to find the same black eyes, their depth even more indistinguishable with the distance closed between them. She has never seen this woman before this season, has never met her in the quarters she shares with the others.

“You’re new,” she concludes as the other takes a seat beside her, legs covered by a thick and rough skirt. She does not look worn out like the rest of them. There is no trace of exhaustion on her face. Her features are fine and elegant, as if she has mistakenly found herself in this place. Her hands seem soft and unmarked, bearing no calluses to tell the story of her labours. She must belong in a palace, or at least the house of a nobleman.

The woman doesn’t answer. She keeps her gaze on Taeyeon’s face, studying her every breath and every heartbeat like she is waiting for a break in both. Like she is waiting to slip into the space and make a home there.

Taeyeon doesn’t ask again. She lifts the flower, twirls it between two fingers, then decides to throw it away.

A hiss and a frown answer the action. The stranger shakes her head with disapproval, moving away to what appears to be her own bedding. She has claimed a corner for herself, away from the other women, as if she carries a contagious disease on her skin and touching her would doom anyone. Taeyeon frowns at her form until she settles under her quilt, pulling it over her head like a hiding place.

The flower remains on the ground, sweet petals waiting to be trampled, long stalk waiting to sink its thorns into an unsuspecting foot. Taeyeon stares at its sad shape from her place until someone else claims it.

“That’s dangerous,” Minjung chides. “If you have to throw it, go to the outhouse!” She begins to move in the direction herself before she is stopped.

“Don’t,” Taeyeon decides. “I... want to keep it.”

Minjung gives her a strange look. “Fine. Don’t be careless with it again.”

“I won’t,” Taeyeon promises, receiving the flower and studying its graceful whorls. It offers a kiss she will not accept yet.

“Sleep now, child,” Minjung hushes, settling into her own bedding next to Taeyeon, holding her close and patting her lightly.

She closes her eyes and lets go of a long sigh, waiting for her dreams to take her. But even as someone blows out the lamps, something tells her she is being watched by eyes made of midnight.

Days turn to months and the season turns too. She twists and tosses in the warm nights, pushing away from Minjung’s worried hushing and caressing. Her mind staggers through the streets of its thoughts, stopping at every turn, ambling over every bridge. She makes mistakes, she talks back when scolded, she forgets her duties and sits by the canal listening to birdsong. 

Always, the eyes stay on her.

She doesn’t try to run from their sharp daggers, or hide from their pointed arrows. She stays within aiming distance, allowing the volley to reach her. To touch her. To leave its marks on her, like a thousand scars of curiosity.

Her name is Gwiboon. At least, this is what Eunsook calls her. The others don’t talk to her so often, and she doesn’t try to change that either. She simply does as they all do. When they eat, she nibbles. When they work, she assists. When they rest, she hides. Her past is not apparent on her like it is on the rest of them. She is not branded with crime like they are, not where anyone can see. She is neither thief nor whore, no witch or shaman. She is simply Gwiboon.

“No more roses for some time,” they speak again many months later.

Taeyeon is surprised enough to lose her footing and fall into the stream, her laundry beginning to escape from her. A loud guffaw assails her, making her blush and stagger back onto her feet.

“Don’t laugh!” she yells and wades after her clothes. 

By the time she has retrieved everything again, she is soaked through. So is Gwiboon, remnants of her laughter sticking to the corner of her lips. They sit by the sloping bank, breath racing and hair dripping. One wrings her skirts, the other lies onto her back, leaving the sun to dry her.

“Who are you?” Taeyeon asks the sky. “Why were you sent here?”

A chuckle replies. “I waited so long for someone to ask... now I’ve forgotten the answer.”

Taeyeon scowls at her. “You shouldn’t play like that,” she warns.

“Hmm?” the other smiles, and a strange array of color blooms in her sable gaze. “I shouldn’t play, or I shouldn’t get caught playing?”

“There, you’re doing it again.”

More chuckles land from Gwiboon’s lips. She lies too, close enough for their shoulders to meet and separate in kisses, over and over. Taeyeon closes her eyes as the heat bakes her clothes and arms and ankles. After a moment's hesitation, she loosens the tie on her blouse to expose her stomach and bindings around her chest, welcoming any stray wind to touch her.

“I was sentenced, but not like all of you,” the mystery is finally broken.

“For what?”

“For... being unnatural.”

“What does that mean?”

There is a long space between their words before Gwiboon’s shoulder breaks the kiss forever. “It means whatever they want it to mean...” she murmurs. When Taeyeon opens her eyes to look at her, she finds a sad a lonely back turned to her instead.

“What does it mean to you?” she asks instead, and it’s like new life has been pushed into the other's body.

She twists, frowning at Taeyeon, blinking in confusion at her. “Nothing,” she shakes her head. “It means nothing to me. I am as I should be. I am as I must be. There is... nothing unnatural about my existence.”

Taeyeon silently agrees, closing her eyes again. “Then you’re just like us.”

By the end of a year, they are inseparable. They walk hand-in-hand through the head-high crops, throwing sulphur to kill pests or hiding and seeking between the tall stalks of sorghum. They clean and cook together, finding new ways to split rations between the five of them without leaving their stomachs unsated. They feed the chickens and clean the goats. They milk the cows and lug the firewood. After a long day in the fields, they massage the ache out of each other’s limbs, giggling when Junghee complains about no one doing the same for her. Gwiboon’s hands really are as soft as they look, no matter how hard she works. Taeyeon goes as far as moving their bedding together, placing herself closer the other's soft goodnights and leaving hushed lullabies behind.

They become close enough to spend all their hours, awake and asleep, with only one another.

On an afternoon that catches them unawares with warm thick raindrops, they laugh and run towards the nearest trees for cover. A bird squawks and rustles the foliage, showering them with wetness despite their best efforts to keep dry. They laugh even louder, curling into a ball of damp clothes and shivering limbs.

“Will they come look for us?”

“Let’s stay here until they do.”

“What would they say if they saw us like this?”

“Does it matter?”

They share a look at that, watering it and letting it grow into a grin.

Drenched again, Taeyeon remembers the afternoon spent by the stream. How different Gwiboon had been then, how odd and unexpected. Her hair is still as curly and wild, her fingers are still as long and careful. Her stare is still as unabashed. But she is not the same Gwiboon. She is no longer buried under the snow. She has flowered. And even if she bears prickles of her own, shown in moments of anger or sickness, she is still beautiful.

The rain patters on their heads. Taeyeon keeps her face hidden in Gwiboon’s neck. Her hands are slow when they warm her or hold the back of her neck. Her lips are soft when they whisper what they are about to do; where they’re about to go. The scent of wet earth is perfume, the splatter of soil is like music, the rustle of branches is as playful as their breath. Taeyeon closes her eyes, a string of kisses painting her in the color of heat and happiness. 

“Why did you take it?” Gwiboon asks, her fingers so quick and clever, raising so many questions in Taeyeon’s mind about where she learnt a skill like that.

“Wh-what?” she shudders in reply. Her thighs are quivering. Her voice is stuttering. She claws at the other’s clothes, whimpering with each swipe of the thumb and every snap of the wrist.

“The rose,” Gwiboon closes her mouth on Taeyeon’s racing pulse. “Back then. You took it.” She lifts her head so their eyes can meet, and the blackness returns with such force its as if it never left.

“I did,” Taeyeon nods, half a grin spreading over her face even as the other’s hand continues to make her dizzy. “I did!”

She doesn’t understand what happens next. Her body doesn’t seem as familiar to herself when Gwiboon speeds her hand, moving it like a rattle inside Taeyeon again and again and again until a flood responds to her prodding. Taeyeon gushes, a spurt of dampness spilling from her, making her yelp. She looks down in shock, her skirt muddy and soaked with more than rain. Gwiboon giggles as if she’d expected this, leaning in to join their lips.

“I’m glad you kept it,” she nods. “I’m glad.”


	20. [Minho / Taemin] 더 원, 더 원하게 돼

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm your eyes 다른 눈 뜨게 할  
>  I'm your toy 널 순수하게 할  
>  믿어봐 네 안의 self-control  
>  움직여 봐 이끌린 body and soul  
> 

From the minute Taemin steps into the room, he knows this is an excuse to insult him.

A row of beautiful, tall women stand with their backs against a partition, just by the entrance. Their dresses are short, their hair is fake, their faces are hidden underneath several layers of make-up. And even though the other factions show some interest in the line-up, he walks straight past them.

Walking around the partition, he finds a table loaded with food. And underneath the food is a naked man.

With a scoff he looks to Jonghyun, his second-in-command, who simply blushes and averts his eyes from the sight. “Your inside man is playing you,” he’s hissed at before Taemin turns his gaze to the other bosses.

They stroll in after a while, a girl on each arm, laughter in their demeanor and humor in their speech. Their own deputies follow in tow—heads down, hands in pockets, eyes hidden behind dark glasses but palpably studying everyone in attendance.

“You’ve really outdone yourself, Jung sajang,” Taemin congratulates one out of spite, motioning to the spread. “What a display. Simply exquisite~”

The asshole flashes a shit-eating grin. “Of course! All for you, Taemin goon!”

 _Go fuck yourself_ , he wants to say as he punches the man’s face in. Jonghyun must sense his agitation because a stilling hand is immediately clasping his arm tightly in the next moment. He’s right. This isn’t the time or place for a petty fight. They’ve gathered to discuss truce. Too many men have been lost, and too much of their territory has been overrun by cops in the last three months alone. Taemin understands why they need to put their differences aside and work together.

But he still doesn’t like being laughed at.

The Twin Knives gang is an elite group, controlling nearly half the drug cartels along the west coast. They regulate, they distribute, they take a large cut of the profits. If he’s honest with himself, it’s blood money, yes. But it keeps a lot of local businesses afloat. Isn’t that the way of life? Something beautiful growing out of something filthy?

In any case, the dealings give Taemin a lot of power over the rest of the gangs and their piddly squabbles. Even so, they talk behind his back. They call him names, spread obscene rumors about him.

And in Lee Taemin’s books, disrespect is a fucking deal-breaker.

The other bosses seat themselves around the table, eyeing the food with obvious amusement. Each piece of fish is carefully balanced on sculpted abs and shapely thighs. Each nipple holds up a roll of sushi, waiting to be scooped up by an eager tongue. Even the guy’s prick isn’t wasted space, three little bowls of sauce form a string from pelvis to cock, a wrapped skeleton leaf doing nothing to hide the flaccid member from sight.

Only his face is left uncovered, unadorned. He stares blankly up at the ceiling, a slight rise and fall of his chest the only giveaway of him being alive.

“Well?” Seo sajang asks. “Are you going to do the honors, Taemin goon?”

It’s a clear provocation. Jonghyun is already leaning in to whisper calming advice as Taemin is taking off his jacket. “Of course!” he says brightly. “I can’t wait! I mean, I’m so grateful to all of you for doing this,” he stands over the display, facing the others. “Truly. You don’t know how much this means to me. In fact I want to thank you—” he raises his finger and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

“Taemin—” Jonghyun sighs, but is waved away.

“I want to thank you all properly.” At the sight of his tattooed arms, there’s some panic in everyone’s eyes. They expect a fist fight. But when Taemin moves on to the buckle of his pants, the panic morphs into utter bewilderment. “I want to thank you,” he smirks. “With every inch of me.”

“Wh-what is the meaning of this—?!” Jung sajang exclaims.

“S-surely this is all a joke. Right? …right?” Seo follows.

“Hardly,” Taemin answers, then taps the shoulder of the naked man on the table. “Yah,” he mutters. When he gets no response, he grits his teeth. “Answer me while I’m talking nicely, asshole. Look at me!”

A pair of soft brown eyes turn to regard him. A gulp travels down a pretty long neck. A pink circle of lips twitches, but doesn’t let out any words. _This one is trained well,_ Taemin thinks.

“Whatever these fuckers paid you,” he rudely points his chin at the other bosses. “If I pay you triple will you let me fuck you? In front of everyone?”

“This is an outrage!” Park sajang begins to gather his things.

“No one leaves until I say so,” Taemin orders, and immediately, the sound of a lock clicking resonates through the room. The bosses look scandalized, their deputies wish they had their weapons. “No one leaves,” they’re told again.

“Tae,” Jonghyun approaches, once more holding out his hand and being swatted away. But this time, he persists. “Taemin, listen. At least let the women go.”

He turns to the girls, noticing their scared faces as they try to move as far away from him as possible. They don’t belong here, they have nothing to do with this. With a jerk of his head, Taemin dismisses them. They let out tiny screams as they run for the door, frantically knocking on it and begging for it to open.

When they’re gone, Taemin raises his eyebrows at the man on the table once again. “So? What’s it going to be?”

Big brown eyes regard him for a moment, measuring him and his words. “What if I say no?” a surprisingly deep voice asks.

“You walk away with whatever scraps they threw at you. And I look like a fucking loser,” Taemin shrugs, chuckling. “Isn’t that what you were hired for?”

“Taemin goon!” Seo is deeply agitated at this point. “This is crossing a line. We agreed to meet tonight out of the goodness of our hearts and here you are—”

A finger on the lips is all Taemin needs to silence him, or any other remonstrations.

The supine man blinks, then returns his attention to the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought. “Make it four times the price,” he finally responds, smiling an oddly benevolent smile. “And I’ll help.”

“Deal,” Taemin smirks, climbing onto the table. He clicks his fingers at one of the serving staff, ordering him to find lube and a condom.

“No,” he’s corrected. “You don’t need to play safe. I know you’re dangerous,” the man on the table turns, sushi slithering off of him and leaving trails of oil. His skin is the color of caramel and has Taemin wondering how he tastes. Despite his anger, he has to admit this is exactly the kind of man he would bring back home after a long night out in town. His face is sweet, unguarded. His body is athletic and lithe. He seems quiet, his demeanour is cute. But there is clearly an animal inside him, willing to show itself whenever it pleases. He’s not suited for a quick fuck, no. He has to be savored for hours, a dick buried miles deep into him until he’s a wild, shuddering mess.

He’s perfect.

“Tae, listen to me—” Jonghyun implores. “You’ve made your point, just… stop. _Please_.”

Taemin takes hold of the beautifully curved ass in front of him, caressing its globes and gripping its crease. The man before him arches into the touch, turning his head back to look at him. “What’re you waiting for?” he smiles.

“Tae. Please!” Jonghyun continues.

Taemin turns to his subordinate as the other bosses shudder and cover their eyes in shame. “This isn’t a negotiation,” he grinds his hardness forward, pulling a deep moan from the other.

“I want what I want.”


End file.
